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AD-AGI 270 MASSACHUSETTS INST OF TECH CAMBRIDGE POLITICAL SCIEN--SSC F/6 5/4THEORIES OF STATE ANALYZING THE POLICY PROCESS.IU)NASFID OV 73 L P BLOOMFIELD
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This paper was prepared .for the Office ofExternal Research of the D~zaxtsiezit f St-re as oneof a series of studies in Methods and Policy Processes
carried out under the Department's progam of external___Frresaoh. The interpretations, conclusions and sug-
gestions contained in this paper are those of the authorand should not be interpreted as representing the officialiews of the Department of State.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTION 1
De Quol S'Agit 11? 2
Boundaries of the Survey 6
Elements and Phases of the Process 10
II. RELEVANT TRENDS IN CURRENT SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCI 12
Systems Approaches 13
Models of the Process 16
The Rational Actor Model 20
The Organizational Process Model 27
The Bureaucratic Politics Model 32
The Psychological Approach: Attitudes and Interpersonal
Relations 37
The Information Aspect 44
The Planning Component 48
III. THE CASE STUDY APPROACH 57
IV. CLUES FROM BUSINESS THEORY 66
V. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 69
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JUSTIFICATION
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1. INTRDDUCTION*
What follows is a report on research bearing on the policy process in the
Department of State. It takes a look at the state of the art in the social
science research community, including the main "knowns" and "unknowns" in
current theorizing about the way policy decisions are made. Its purpose is to
see what, if any, of this intellectual activity might contribute to the Department's
mission, and, if the answer is positive, to recommend possibly fruitful lines of
further inquiry or action.
This subject matter is singularly full of pitfalls. Let me give just three
examples. a.) It is widely believed that the Department "has a problem"; but
there is little agreement on defining that problem. b.) Americans traditionally
look to organizational solutions to institutional problems; but the relation
between organization and the quality of foreign policy is nebulous and unproven.
c.) Academic researchers who take an interest in the foreign policymaking process
have moved toward some new and interesting intellectual paradigms in recent years;
but these do not seem to track with the actualities or needs as seen from the
bureaucracy.
The approach here is thus eclectic, and agnostic as well. It starts with
no particular assumptions save that the Department's future effectiveness may
conceivably be affected by knowledge accumulated by scholars interested in the
policy process. Even whether that suggests productive use of taxpayers' funds,
I want to leave open until better demonstrated.
*Without expecting them to take any responsibility for the result, I mn grateful
to the following for advice and suggestions: Hayward Alker, Graham T. Allison,
Edward H. Bowman, William F. Pounds, Herbert J. Spiro, John D. Steinbruner, and
Pio D. Uliassi.
De Quoi S'Agit-Il?
It is a commonplace that the Department ofState does not function today, and has notfunctioned for many years, in an efficientfashion at either the policy-making levelor the management level.
Personnel for the New Diplomacy.The Herter Report (New York:Carnegie Endowment for Interna-tional Peace, Dec. 1962), p. 15.
Considering that the same statement could be - and has been - made any
time in the thirteen years that followed the Herter Commission, it might be
helpful to anchor our quest in Marshal Foch's deceptively simple question before
ascending to the more rarified atmosphere of social science theory.
It is instructive to ask what the Department seeks to achieve via the policy
process. The answer that springs to mind is "better foreign policy." More
precisely, the aim is to bring to bear on policy formulation and execution the
organizational and procedural arrangements that will get the most out of the
people involved, generate timely action, encourage imaginative thinking, and
pull together effectively the multiple parts of the foreign policy apparatus.
Like all normatively stated goals, this set would not arouse much argument.
But few would say it has been achieved. Diagnoses may vary widely, but
one thing that cannot be found is the conviction, either inside or outside the
government, that there is no problem and everything is OK. Opinions differ
widely as to where the trouble lies. But it has become an accepted article of
faith that better process somehow produces better policy.
*1L
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There may, of course, be a fundamental flaw in that belief, and there is
in fact little evidence !hat any particular process or organization produces a
"better" policy. If the problem is discontent with the Department's substantive
product, it is not likely to be ameliorated by the usual organizational solutions.
It may, however, be affected by some less-common "process solutions", such as
improved planning and forecasting capabilities. To this extent, then, process
affects, and thus can improve (or worsen), the policy output.
A second definition of the Department's "problem" is more pointed, and has
come from the White House during three recent administrations. It takes the form
of complaints that the Department is slow in responding to demands, and unimagina-
tive or pedestrian when it does respond.
In some earlier instances the problem was defined in terms of actually
opposing the President's chosen policy. Charles E. Bohlen in his recent memoirs
reminds us of the wartime belief on the part of President Roosevelt and Harry
Hopkins that, given their priority to helping the Soviets' military effort, the
"State Department's worry about political problems smacked of foot-dragging." 1
Later Presidents did'nt have the problem of substantive opposition to
policy, and more recent Presidential criticism of the Department's output turn
out to involve either slowness of response, or the lack of incision that often
bedevils negotiated documents. Bohlen underlines assertions by President Kennedy's
biographers of impatience with the Department when he recalls Kennedy exploding,
"Chip, what is wrong with that God-damned department of yours? I never can get
a quick answer no matter what question I put to them."2
1 Charles E. Bohlen, Witness to History. 1929-1969 (New York: W.W. Norton,
1973), p. 121.
2 Ibid., p. 490. (Bohlen's brave answer was , in effect, "You are.")
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Journalist Henry Brandon describes President Nixon on taking office as
regarding the State Department bureaucracy as "an incorrigibly lethargic snail
protected by a thick shell of tradition, incapable of creative ideas or firm
action 3
The Department's primary task is assisting the President in his conduct
4of the nation's foreign policy. To the extent that he is not a satisfied
customer, to that extent the Department indubitably has a problem.
It is tempting to say that the shortcomings most criticized by the White
House could be cured by simply moving papers faster and hiring better stylists.
It can also be argued that some of the "bold new initiatives" generated by White
House critics of the Department in recent years might in retrospect have benefited
from a stronger Departmental advocacy of caution. Also, something can be said
for operating so as not to escalate problems to the next level.5 Still, when a
President wants something new in his foreign policy, he believes he has a problem
with the Department if he cannot get it on his terms, and the result in recent
years was a further flow of policy-making responsibility away from the Department,
which itself created serious problems for the Department as a human institution.
The third way to define the Department's problem is that way - as an institution
with unique functions and complex missions, vulnerable to some of the chronic
problems of other complex institutions with traditions, elite professional groups,
Henry Brandon, The Retreat of American Power (Garden City: Doubleday, 1973),
p. 24 .4 A recent study suggested regarding the entire policy process as "a basic
support system for the President in the foreign policy decision making field".
United Nations Association Policy Panel in Foreign Policy Decision-Makini: The New
Dimension (New York: UNA-USA, 1973), p. 11.
5 Adam Yarmolinsky recently wrote "For Defense, action is the object. ForState, it is the danger to be avoided". "Bureaucratic Structures and Political
Qutcomes", _Journal of International Affairs, 1969, p. 229. Secretary of StateDean Rusk once said his object was to make foreign policy boring, i.e., get itoff the front pages.
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and standard operating procedures. In this light, regardless of shifting
relationships with the White House, there is a persistent belief, held not
only by outside critics but often by officials within the Department, that the
process by which policy is developed is somehow badly staffed, inadequate,
defensive and protective, inefficient, overburdened, improperly structured,
resistant to change, unable to lead, and unresponsive to criticism. Closely
linked to this generalized critique is a sense that events always seem to
overtake the system, that its preoccupation with crisis (or with routine) does
not permit it to get ahead of the exigencies created by the international environ-
ment ; in short, that the Department does not look ahead or plan ahead sufficiently
to be either imaginative or prescient.
This critique is widespread enough to justify a search for knowledge or
methods or organizational solutions that might ameliorate the condition. Even
if all these criticisms contain some measure of truth, one still is entitled
to ask if the problem is to be found in organization, methods, SOP's, or the
steps pieces of paper go through; in the attitudes of its personnel; or in
the external environment? Suppose it were possible to design a foreign office
full of people who were uniformly open-minded, eager for creative change, imaginative,
logical in thought, vigorous in advocacy, hospitable to long-range thinking, and
rigorous and objective in analysis. How different would our foreign policy actually
be? Would it necessarily be better? In fact, would one even need a set of formal
processes and procedures if the entire staff possessed these qualities? If U.S.
foreign policy were uniformly and popularly "successful", if the President made
full use of the Department for all foreign policy advice and operation, and if
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Congress were congratulatory about the product, would anyone worry about the
"policy process"?
On the other hand, if the problem is that most institutionalized bureau-
cracies almost by definition do not boast these qualities, can their absence
be compensated for by system reforms? What system reforms?
In the inquiry that follows, the "problem" will be taken mainly in my third
sense, that is, a set of weaknesses inherent in the Department as a human insti-
tution with demanding tasks and critical customers, which demonstrablv .,uld
benefit from improved capacit to anticipate events, to provi .. re imaginative
solutions to policy problems. and to understla)its own processes better. Mow
can outside research and analysis contribute to these ends?
Boundaries of the Survey
1) The present study is by necessity selective, although it touches on the
main currents in research. The. literature referred to is almost entirely American.
2) I skip much of the outside literature which, while often interesting, is
purely anecdotal, historical, hortatory, or without theoretical foundations or
usable analytical categories. 6 Instead, I will concentrate on the analysts who
have at least tried to apply theory, including normative theory (and what I suppose
is best called "pre-theory"), plus historical case studies that can be generalized
from.
3) The inquiry is limited to the Department of State, but the fact is that
much of the outside research and analysis of policy process is pointed at the
6 As Robert Rothstein says in his valuable new book, there are many memoirs,
exposes, and administrative studies of how the Department functions, "but attemptsto analyze why the Department and the Foreign Service behave as they do are rare."Planning. Prediction and Policymaking in Foreign Affairs: Theory and Practice(Boston: Little, Brown, 1972), p. 34.
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Presidential-level policy process, on the unsurprising premise that the President
makes foreign policy, with the Department of State but one of the advisory inputs
irto that process.
4) Much of the recent literature about process deals with crises. Those
may be the occasions when the process becomes both visible and interesting, but
emphasizing the exception to usual practices has distorted the analysis of process
(and policy as well). The rules apply except in crisis, and systematic analysis
of process must apply to the normal functioning of the system before it can begin
to apply to crisis management. I have tried to correct for this by keeping in
mind day-to-day process questions, recognizing that the time it counts is when the
process is under strain.
5) The last decade and a half have witnessed the decline of the traditional
role of the Department as primus inter pares in the government-wide process of
foreiga policy-making. The metastasis of power during the 1960's to agencies
such as the Pentagon and the White House staff, at the expense of traditional
State -rimacv. 7,ielded in the 1970's to a dramatic centralization of both staff
work and decision on most of the foreign policy issues that matter. Analyses
of the policy process have naturally been influenced by this condition, although
the situation may now of course be changing, and I am assuming revived Department
standing.
6.) A great deal of the theorizing about "policy process" goes under the
label of "Decision-Making". Do they mean the same thing?
ILI.
-vl
Most academic definitions of Decision-Making (e.g. Snyder, Bruck and Sapin )
suggest that the two have much in common, although process can take place without
decision. I do not propose to get hung up on that semantic shade of difference,
since much of the literature on "Decision-Making" gets to the subject in which
we are interested, so much of this report deals with theories about "decision-
making".
7) Despite the fact that the 1971 Departmental Task Force reports tended to
8emphasize the problem of management, the present survey does not deal with what
might be called the Organizational, Management and Methods approaches to improving9
and "rationalizing" the policy process. However, I do refer to a new set of
approaches and concepts in the theory of business management, known as "Organiza-
tion Development", which does deal with "policy process" via organization, methods,
and management.
8) I will only mention a few examples of approaches to process or decision
that seek to apply quantitative and computer technology (e.g. formal modelling
of the system, and of the. "decision-maker" using techniques of artificial
intelligence).
Their rather formalistic definition of "decision-making" is "a processwhich results in the selection from a socially defined, limited number of problem-atical, alternative projects of one project intended to bring about the particularstate of affairs envisaged by the decision-makers". Richard C. Snyder, H.W. Bruckand Burton Sapin, editors, Foreign Policy Decision-Making: An Approach to the Studyof International Politics (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1962), p. 90.See also James N. Rosenau, "The Premise and Promise of Decision-Making Analysis,"in Contemporary Political Analysis, James C. Charlesworth (New York: Free Press, 1967);and James A. Robinson and Richard C. Snyder, "Decision-Haking in InternationalPolitics," in H.C. Kelman, ed., International Behavior (New York: Holt, Rinehart,and Winston, 1965).
8 For example, the "principal cause" of the Department's failings on inter-
agency relations was "its weakness in the area of management capability." Diplomacyfor the 1970's - A Program of Management Reform for the Department of State (Depart-ment of State Publication 8854, December 1970), p. 588.
F 9The record of major efforts along this line is chronicled in Harris H. Ball,
Jr., "An Examination of the Major Efforts for Organizational Effectiveness in theDepartment of State from 1924 to 1971." Unpublished MBA thesis, George WashingtonUniversity, School of Government and Business Administration, September 1971.
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9) Finally, there are issues about policy process which are obviously
more central than those I deal with here, but which do not fall within my
mandate to explore theories that might be relevant to the Department's mission.
These indubitably "first-order" issues involve: Presidential actions and style;
competition between Cabinet-level figures in government; conceptions of foreign
affairs which downgrade all but bilateral relations and diplomatic methods; 1 0
the sociology of closed career services; and the "cultural" gaps between operators
and analysts in the government. All these are, as I say, crucial. But there is
11still a good deal to be said for the "second-order" issues treated here.
10 The 1973 UNA-USA panel on Foreign Policy Decision-Making suggested that
the problem lies in the inadequacy of the process, not for traditional diplomacy,but for new interdependencies. Their approach was to look for new organizationalsolutions, and for increased standing for multilateral modes of operation.
11An interesting new work by Richard Smoke and Alexander L. George dis-
tinguishes between empirical theory, normative theory, and policy science, whichis our focus here. Theory for Policy in International Relations, DiscussionPaper No. 19, Public Policy Program, John F. Kennedy School of Government, HarvardUniversity, June 1973, pp. 1-2.
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Elements and Phases of the Process
A final set of distinctions is in order before turning to the literature.
Theorists offer a variety of ways to sort out the component parts of any
policy process. Perhaps the most fundamental distinction between modes of
analysis is that of "intellectual" and "operational".
Intellectual addresses the "why?" of policy. It encompasses: definitions
of interests, underlying assumptions, identificaticn of goals, strategies, prior-
ities, alternatives and options. It deals with both preferences and "rational"
calculations.
Operational embraces the other classic political science questions of "who,
what, where, how?" (a la Harold Lasswell).
I will leave the latter to the organizational-mindedand concentrate here
on the former, as representing the elusive yet all-important heart of the policy
process as I understand it.
A recent in-house breakdown of the phases of Departmental decision-making
suggested five categories: 1) identifying the issues, 2) dealing with the
problem, 3) implementing decisions, 4) appraisQl. of the decisions, and 5) planning
all in the context of three perspectives (organizational arrangements, flow12
of activity producing outputs, and flow of information).
I believe however that somewhat more rigor is introduced when the process
is broken down into categories suggested by systems theory - Inputs, Decisions,
and Outputs. For our purposes, in systems terms, decision-making, traditionally
12 See the Task Force XIII report on "Management Tools," pp. 546-49.
The Task Force found short-term issues well-identified, dealt with, and implemented,but not the long-range or less urgent. Appraisal, planning and review were alladjudged as very weak. p. 535. Burton Sapin sees decisions as calling for threebroad categories of intellectual pioduct and performance: intelligence, policy
analysis, and planning. The Making of United States Foreign Policy (Washington:Brookings, 1966), p. 289.
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seen as an independent variable with the international system the dependent
13variable, is the dependent variable.
The process, seen dynamically, breaks down into phases when one
uses the words of systems theory -- Inputs, Decision, and Outputs.
Inputs include: information, observing, reporting, intelligence;
also personnel and their training.
Decisions include: the use of information, the process of analysis
centering on goals and alternative strategies, policy options, discussion,
bargaining, advising, recommending.
Outputs include: policy choices, implementation and follow-through,
informing , negotiating, persuading. Also learning, and consequent feedback
into input, closing the "cybernetic loop."
The area I propose to cover bears mostly on inputs and decisions. It
thus focuses more on means than on ends. I explained earlier that truly first-
order issues of policy process would have to confront important questions of
value, and we are deliberately excluding these here. In closing this introduction,
I would nonetheless note Harlan Cleveland's cautionary question: "whether systems
thinking may have retarded our capacity to cope with ethical issues, to think
systematically about values."1 4
13 A position taken, for example, by the late Arnold Wolfers;see. "The
Actors in International Politics" in William J. Fox, ed., Theoretical Aspects ofInternational Relations (South Bend: Notre Dame, 1959). In the same spirit, DeanAcheson once said that, to believe the social scientists, he should title hismemoirs "I Was A Dependent Variable."
14 Speech to Operations Research Society of America, May 11, 1973.
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II. RELEVANT TRENDS IN CURRENT SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH
There is, as may be surmised, no coherent body of theory that is directly
relevant to the operations and problems of the State Department, although much
that bears indirectly, as we shall see. The search for relevant theory thus
1conforms in some measure to the law of the Drunkard's Search.
Nevertheless, there is a considerable body of what might be called "pre-
theory" that clearly does have some relevance to the policy process in State.
Let me deal fairly briefly with some "systems approaches" which, while often
backed by enthusiastic advocates, do not seem to me as relevant as three dominant
models I will subsequently discuss. Some of these systems approaches" are actually2
believed - wrongly - to dominate the government's policy process (possiblyjustifying Roger Hilsman's otherwise
1 ("Why are you down on your hands and knees fumbling around the street
lamppost?" "Because I lost my keys." "Where did you lose them?" "Over there.""Then why are you looking here?" "Because the light's better.")
2 A clear overstatement of the role of such methods was made in an otherwise
surprisingly insightful survey of U.S. crisis-management techniques by a Sovietscholar, Vitaly V. Zhurkin, now Deputy Director of the Institute for Study of theUSA of the Academy of Sciences:
Throughout the last decade rigorous attempts weremade to apply such scientific methods as the systemapproach, decision-making theory, game theory,modeling (primarily in the form of experimentalsimulated political-military exercises), and variousstatistical methods of analysis (content analysis,communications analysis, and factor analysis) tothe analysis of international crises and the for-mulation of more effective forms for implementingthe U.S. foreign policy course in thesesituations.
"The United States and International Political Crises"Moscow USA: ECONOMICS. POLITICS. AND IDEOLOGY,No. 12, December 1970
Perhaps he had read Congressman Craig Hosmer's statement (in an attack onACDA's advocacy of the NPT) that "ACDA totally ignored the procedures by whichvital national security decisions have been made for almost a decade. That is,by the computer-aided formulas of 'Systems Analysis'." February 7, 1968.
unjustifiable dictum that policy-making is so thoroughly political a process
that analysis has virtually no place in it. 3)
Systems Approaches
This heading, for our purposes, subsumes operations research, systems
analysis, and formal modelling of the decisional structure by various means
such as computer simulation. This general approach presupposes the ability
to grasp the crucial variables in the system or sub-system; to give mathematical
expression to those variables and their relation to each other; and to develop
computer programs able to simulate the interaction of those elements.
E.S. Quade defined the stages for such analysis in a way that expands
traditional break-downs of the Department's policy process:
Formulation (defining issues, clarifying objectives, limiting the problem)
Search (determining relevant data, looking for alternative programs
of action to resolve the issue)
Explanation (building a model, using it to explore the consequences
of alternative programs by estimates of cost and performance)
Interpretation (deriving conclusions and indicating a preferred
alternative or course of action)
Verification (testing the conclusion by experiment)4
3 Roger Hilsman, To Move A Nation (New York: Delta, 1967), pp. 5-13.See also his The Politics of Policy-Makini in Defense and Foreign Policy (New York:Harper and Row, 1971).
4Quade, E.S. in Analysis for Military Decisions (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1967).
Herbert J. Spiro, in an interesting retrospective view of systems theory backto Hobbes, defines the "irreducible existential functions of political systems"as formulation, deliberation, resolution of issues, and solution of problems."An evaluation of Systems Theory". Ch. 9 in Charlesworth, ContemporaryPolitical Analysis, p. cit. , p. 172.
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In their advocacy of formal modelling in more general policy analysis,
Brewer and Hall, taking off from Jay Forrester's highly influential urban
dynamics model, assert that "decision-makers will increasingly resort to the
most advanced scientific and management skills and techniques to attain problem
"5solutions." There is little evidence that this is true of foreign policy-making.
Few would quarrel with the desirability of more "systematic" or "rational"
policy analysis, what Under Secretary Macomber in a speech on January 14, 1971
called "the capacity for objective and penetrating analysis." The issue here
is rather the application of theory and electronic aids in helping the analyst
develop an ability that "selects and inter-relateS facts, advances propositions,
and offers conclusions.'"6 That issue remains unresolved.
The ultimate aims are to be able to reproduce electronically a rational
decision-maker and to predict future behavior or policy outcomes. Raymond Tanter
in the social sciences 7 and others working in the still highly theoretical field
of artificial intelligence are interested in modelling and simulating by computer
a foreign-policy "decision-maker." The effort would involve programming charac-
teristic responses so the system might react with appropriate "decisions" aided
by data banks containing precedents and other information.
Garry D. Brewer and Owen P. Hall, Jr., "Policy Analysis by Computer
Simulation:The Need for Appraisal," RAND paper P-4893
6 See Grant H. Hilliker, "Man and the Fact Machine in Foreign Affairs,"
Foreign Service Journal, March 1971, p. 14.
7 See James A. Moore and Raymond Tanter, 0 Computer-Aided Conflict
Information System I". Prepared for delivery to American Political Science
Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans, La., September 5, 1973.
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Less arkbitiously, theory has been developed and experimental systems
produced to improve the process of decision-making in selected sectors such
8as conflict-prevention, with a recent example the CASCON system being used
experimentally by the Department of State and the United Nations. Another such
attempt is Hilliker's "Graphic Factor Analysis."9
Least ambitiously, the aim is systematically to store and retrieve information
useful to policy-making. But even computerizing government archives has encoun-
tered severe problems, both of organizing in conceptually viable ways the vast
quantities and varieties of information, and of retraining the potential users
to depend on such a system. The crucial point here is that systematizine the
"library" functions of the process is not really controversial; systematizing the pro3is.
Other bodies of tangentially A propos theory cum method, with a few repre-
sentative names, include game theory (Shubik, Schelling) and political games
(Guetzkow, Bloomfield), statistical methods of analysis such as content analsis
(North, Holsti), communications theory (Pool), events data analysis (McClelland,
Singer, Rummel), roll call analysis (Alker), factor analysis, and doubtless others.
Of these, I shall return to political games as most immediately usable as an
aid to policy planning and forecasting.
8(Computer-Aided System for Information on Local Conflicts). The most
accessible write-up is Lincoln P. Bloomfield and Robert R. Beattie, "Computersand Policy-Making: The CASCON Experiment," Journal of Conflict Resolution, March 1971.
9"Man and theFact Machine in Foreign Affairs",op. cit.
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A major contribution of the social sciences to understanding of the policy
process lies in the several models of the process that have been pdvanced
in recent years, each representing a different conceptual framework for explain-
ing what happens -- or should happen -- when a group of officials combine to
10discuss and recommend or decide about foreign policy activities.
Elementary models were earlier offered which simply diagrammed the assign-11
ment of tasks and flow of papers in dealing with a single policy problem.
More recently, starting with the arrival of "Hitchcraft" in Secretary MacNamara's
Pentagon in 1961, system-type modelling from operations research led to the
application of cost-benefit analysis or PPBS (program planning and budgeting
system) in increasing sectors of public policy where substantial fiscal or
manpower resources were to be allocated.
12
PPBS was extremely influential in the process of decision-making through
the DOD's Office of Systems Analysis, and represented a conscious effort both
to make budgets more meaningful, and to select between weapons systems on the
10 The underlying argument for the validity of this approach was made by
Graham T. Allison when he wrote:
Professional analysts of foreign affairs (as well as
ordinary laymen) think about problems of foreign andmilitary policy in terms of largely implicit concep-tual models that have significant consequences forthe content of their thought. Essence of Decision:
Explaining the Cuban Miisile Crisis (Boston:Little, Brown, 1971), p. 4.
11 See Dean G. Pruitt, "Problem Solving in the Department of State,"
Social Science Younmation, University of Denver 1964-1965; also Charlton Oburr, "TheFlow of Policy-Making in the Department of State", in H. Field Haviland, Ed., The
U Formulation and Administration of US Foreign Policy (Washir.gton: Brookings, 1960).
12 See Charles J. Hitch and Roland N. McKean, The Economics of Defense
in the Nuclear Age (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960).
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basis of explicit and generally "rational" calculations. But attempts in
the late 60's to extend PPBS throughout the government encountered severe
criticism, exemplified by Aaron Wildavaky's flat assertion that "no one knows
how to do program budgeting;",1 4
It is clear that those who introduced the PPB systeminto the federal government in one fell swoop did notundertake a policy analysis on how to Introduce policyanalysis into the federal government.
Arguing that other agencies of government "produce a vast amount of
inchoate information characterized by premature quantification of irrelevant16
items", Wildavsky concluded that "the shotgun marriage between policy analysis
and budgeting should be annulled."1 7
PPBS was also criticized on methodological grounds, with Yehezkel Dror,
for example, modifying it to "policy analysis" whereby, through fudging con-
flicting values, agreement could be reached on a policy that accomplishes
different objectives.18
13 Samuel M. Greenhouse defined eight "structural members" in PPBS' system
of "accountability": objectives, programs, program alternatives, outputs, progressmeasurements, inputs, alternative ways, and systems analysis, "PPBS Rationale,Language, and Idea-Relationships", Public Administration Review, December 1966.
14 Wildavsky, Aaron, "Rescuing Policy Analysis from PPBS," Public Adminis-
tration Review, March/April 1969, p. 8.
15 Ibid., p. 4.
16 Ibid., p. 9.
17 Ibid., p. 12.
18 "Policy Analysts: A New Professionai Role in Government Service,"
Public Administration Review, September 1967. See also Y. Dror, Public Policy-
making Reexamined (San Francisco: Chandler, 1968). Dror's thesis was criticizedby Ira Sharkansky and Randall Ripley in American Political Science Review, September1969, replied to by Dror in ibid., March 1970; see also Michael J. Shapiro in
Transaction, October 1970.
18/
Within the government, the subterranean butoften volcanic opposition
to PPBS and cost-effectiveness analysis sometimes exploded in plain view, as
in the withering scorn of Admiral Hyman Rickover:
At one time the pagan gods ruled the world.Later the kings. Then the warriors, foll-owed by the lawyers. Now it is cost accoun-tants. Ultimately some measure of conmnnsense comes into play. Events tame them19and relegate them to their proper place.
By the late-1960's the spirit of PPBS began to invade the foreign affairs
sector. Some attempts were made to accommodate them ; one specified eight
basic steps that would accomplish the task: 1) Define U.S. interests in the
external world. 2) Prepare a baseline forecast. 3) Specify U.S. objectives.
4) Particularize the baseline forecast. 5) Minimize the cost of pursuing the
latter. 6) Minimize the cost of objectives added to baseline. 7) Minimize
the cost of objectives left after selective deletion of bas1'ine ojbectives.
8) Make a sensitivity analysis of the conclusions. 2 0
But in fact the most interesting literature about PPBS, and about applying
systems analysis, formal game theory, and operations research methods to the
19 New York Times, June 4, 1967. Calling cost-effectiveness studies
on nuclear escort ships 'exactly the same arguments' used against nuclear sub-marines 20 years ago, Admiral Rickover denounced them as 'fog bombs' that imply'that Congress is dense and can't understand the situation.' 'I don't believeit is Congress that is dense,' he said. 'Maybe the cost analysts are dense.'
20 Blechman, Barry and James T. Holt, Cost/Effectiveness Analysis of
Foreign Policy: Need. Approach. and Prospects (Arlington, Va.: CNA No. 68,March 1971.)
19/
foreign policy process focused on their limitations in confronting the most
important policy questions. The main negative argument was that foreign policy
is highly charged with non-qualitative values, and alternative choices have
to be adjudged in terms of a political calculus which is difficult if not
21impossible to express in cost-effectiveness terms
Others have criticized such methodological avenues to foreign policy
decision-making as formal game theory, decision-making under uncertainty
and other formal decision theories on the grounds that they cannot adequately
22express the real political problems at issue. Some focused on the issue we
will look at in the next section of idealized and comprehensive analytical systems
21 The chief arguments were made by Professor Thomas C. Schelling in
a memorandum entitled "PPBS and Foreign Affairs" prepared at the request ofthe Senate Subcommittee on National Security and International Operations,90th Congress, 1st Session, 1968; and Frederick C. Mosher in "Program Budgetingin Foreign Affairs: Some Reflections", ibid.. The application of Operations
Research methods, such as mathematical modelling, to higher-level policyproblems was criticized by now Defense Secretary James R. Schlesinger in
"Quantitative Analysis and National Security," World Politics, January, 1963.
22 See e.g. George Kent in "Presenting Foreign Policy", Research Report
No. 59, Dimensionality of Nations Project, Department of Political Science,
University of Hawaii. Kent proposed "decomposing" large and difficult questionsby following the steps of describing the problem, formulating action proposals,and evaluating alternatives, each divided into its component steps through
the Simon "principle of sub-goal reduction (making progress by substitutingfor achievement of the desired goal the achievement of a set of easier goals)."
p. 15.
i.
20/
versus what Braybrooke and Lindblom were teaching students of decision-making" e ,,23
to call "disjointed incrementalism".Models of the Process
It was not until the late 1960's and early 1970's that social scientists
began seriously to theorize about the foreign policy process in ways that
knowledgeable people saw as touching the central elements in the system
they encountered in their daily routine. The chief breakthrough came with
analyses of events and decisions based on the so-called Bureaucratic Politics
Model (sometimes called "Governmental Politics" Model). The latter has gained
rapid popularity, probably because it conveyed a powerful message to students
of U.S. foreign policy and State Department operations. It had the secondary
effect of throwing into sharper relief other models of the process that either
had been unthinkingly accepted as adequately explanatory and even predictive, or
were imperfectly translated from other fields such as economics (the Rational
Utility-Maximizing Model), or business firm behavior (the Organizational Process
Model, which also has roots in public administration theory).
The Rational Actor Model
The so-called Rational, Utility-Maximizing,.Unitary Actor model stemmed
from a blend of classical international relations theory plus formal decision
theory, including game theory and bargaining theory, particularly as drawn from
the notion of economic man competing in self-interested terms for a share of the
market (or a monopoly). It reflected a theory of behavior in which clearly defined
23 David Braybrooke and Charles E. Lindblom, A Strategy of Decision:
Policy Evaluation as a Social Process (New York: Free Press, 1963).
21/
goals were linked to appropriate strategies by a consciously-deciding and
purposeful mind, followed by selection of appropriate policies and allocation
of needed means. The combination was defined as "rational."
According to Graham Allison, the rational model stems from the utility-
maximizing calculus of Thomas Hobbes. It presumes a decider; it defines policy
as the realization of the decider's objectives; its target is consistency,
achieved by adding rationality to purpose.
The basic concepts embodied in the notion of rational actor are: goals and
objectives (which, faithful to marginal utility or "expected value" theory, have
a payoff or utility or preference function); alternatives (visible on one's
"decision-tree"); choice; and of course consequences. In short, the decider
according to these rules makes a "consistent, value-maximizing choice within
specified constraints."24
Put differently, the rational method is both comprehensive and deductive-
comprehensive in requiring awareness of values and objectives, and in possession
of information on all relevant factors; and deductive in proceeding from
clarified values and objectives to alternative policies, via explicit ends-means
analysis. 25
Not only does classical administrative and organizational theory rest on
this normative, ideal model of both institutional and group behavior. Virtually
all contemporary efforts from within to reform the policy process in the Department,
from the Hoover Commission through the Rerter Commission, through PPBS and the
AFSA and Task Forces of the early seventies, all the way to PARA and Net Assessment,
have sought to make the Department more of a "rational actor" by aiming at the
compoaents of the "rational" process, from goal-setting through alternative
considerations to actions explicitly linked to available resources.
24 Graham Allison, Essence of Decision, op. cit., pp. 29-30.
25 See Richard A. Smith, "Approaches to the Decision-Making Process" (mimeo).
Also Raymond A. Bauer and Kenneth L. Gergen, eds., The Study of Policy Formation j(New York: Free Press. 1968).
22/
In a way this made perfectly good sense. Common sense tell us that
most, if not all, conscious staff work and decision-making uses, in one form
or another, what the process theory calls Rational. (The real issue, which
I will come to in the next sections,is: what other things are also going on in
the process?)
It is therefore not surprising that the most frequent elaborations of the
Rational Model came not from theorists2 6 but, with some notable exceptions,
from government officials and advisers.
Thus Theodore C. Sorenson wrote rather didactically of the seven-step
process White House decisions underwent: 1) agreement on the facts; 2) agreement
on the overall policy objective; 3) precise definition of the problem; 4) canvas-
sing of all possible solutions; 5) a list of the possible consequences flowing
from each solution; 6) recommendation of one alternative; and 7) communication
of the decision and provision for its execution. 2 7
28His later Kennedy provides ample evidence that the above represents a
"pure rationality model" rather than empirically validated fact.
The central difficulty with the Ratioal Actor model was not in value-
ing orderly analysis and action. It was in the confusion between accepting the
model as a guide, i.e., as normatively valid for transformation and reform of the
process; and believing that it accurately described the process that actually
took place. Commenting on this confusion,Graham Allison correctly said:
26 Harold Lasswell was one who had expounded a "strategy of problem-
solving" running neatly through goal clarification, trend description, analysesof conditions, projection of developments, inventory evaluation, and selectionof alternatives. See e.g. A Pre-View of Policy Sciences (New York:American ElsevierPublishing Co., 1971).
27 Torinin-Making in thp Ubitr Hnotod Thi Olivi Brannh nr the Arronw
(New York: Columbia, 1963)
28 New York: Harper & Row, 1965.
23/
The present hiatus in thinking aboutproblems of foreign policy derives in largepart from attempts to pursue Model I reason-ing, without much self-cogciousness, as thesingle form of analysis.
Deuli : my own annual lecture to the incoming class at the National
War College on "Vital U.S. Goals and Objectives" for some years appealed for
just such better, "more rational" linkages between values, assumptions, goals,
objectives, strategies, policies, tactics, resources, etc. in the thinking
and action of the high-level bureaucrat. See attached "Handy-Dandy Analytical
Framework for Analyzing National Strategies/Foreign Policies and Structuring
Strategic Doctrine, which I still believe can aid in orderly thinking about Policy
One really ought to face the paradox that virtually all movements for reform
of the policy process have rested on Model I - the Rational Model; but virtually
all recent .heory about the process of decision-making is based on a pair of
quite different models of behavior - the Organizational Process model and the
Bureaucratic Politics model.
If any single theme characterizes the burgeoning contemporary literature
about tim foreign policy process, it is that the rational actor model no more
reflects the real-life performance of organizations such as State than that of
large business firms (indeed, the single most influential book for a whole
generation of theorists about foreign policy process attacks the rational model
30via analysis of the behavior of the firm).
29 Essence of Decision, o cit., p. 254. Model I is the Rational Actor
model (see next section).30 Richard M. Cyert and James G. March, A Behavioral Theory of the Firm
(Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1963).
Tev'ised February 1973
LPB HANDY-DANDY ANALYTICAL FRAlIOPJ( FOR
ANALYZING NATIONAL STPATEGI S/FOM.IGUT POLICI ES
AMD STRUCTURING STRATEM1C DOCTRINE
Assumptions ("Objective Constants based on history, researchguesswork analysis, forecasting techniques, etc.)
Relevant Values. i.e. General (Moral?) Principles and Broad"National Interest" ("Subjective Constants")
Longer-term"S trategic-l~evel"
ENDS
Specific "Goals" of Policy (,fore than 15 years)
(or "Possession' goals vs."lilieu" goals, afterWolfe rs)
Svecific "Objectives" of Policy (Less than 15 years)
- ----- . .... .
Prior Commitmentak
WS Alternative Ovorall Strate ies
Chosen Strategy
Shorter-term Specific Policies (Alternative Policies)"Tactical-level" POlitical
Psy chological
Military
etc.
MIA14S Agencies and Instrumentalities
Tactics (diplomatic, parliamentary, multilateral, etc.)
A-Vallubilitv of Resources
Time-Phasing
Pre-testit of StrategiesPolicies
Prediction of Outcomes
24/
Thus it can be seen that the mainstream of current theorizing, including
much of the anecdotal material about foreign policy found in case studies,
describes a quite different model of behavior than that on which much official
reform effort rests. Under the Bureaucratic Politics Model and its associated
model of Organizational Behavior (which has roots in public administration
theory), foreign policy is the outcome not of the rational process described
above, but of internecine struggles and negotiated bargains between lower-level
actors in the process. It reflects a contest for power in which players identify
their unit interests with national interest, trade off disparate policy pawns,
and pull and haul in ways any bureaucrat will instantly recognize.
I cannot reconcile these two versions of reality in this survey. I can
urge the reader to keep in mind the extraordinary disjunction between analyses
and reforms based on the Rational Actor model, and the mounting empirical and
theoretical work based on the Bureaucratic Politics model. Perhaps more than
this, I can suggest the hypothesis that the rational model is generally followed
by the ultimate decision-maker, such as the President or the Secretary of State,
particularly where his decision is a confirmation of a recommendation worked
out at lower staff levels. But in the process below the level of actual
decision-maker, in hammering out that recommendation, the behavior of the actors
is more likely to reflect the other two models.
In this sense advice to government officials, in War College speeches or
otherwise, about greater "rationality" in the policy process, is best aimed
at the handful of officials who never do attend such occasions - and remains
for the great population of non-decision-makers in the bureaucracy a set of
homilies which, like Sunday sermons, can enlighten but not substitute for the
earthly realities.
23/ i
The other models, developed as alternatives to the Rational Actor
model, ought to be regarded not as denials of rationality in the acts of
bureaucrats but as additional explanations of behavior in organizations.
What these other models do is illuminate the "non-rational" influences that
bear on steps in the policy process, as well as the compromises real-world
people make with the ideal when they work their way through the policy machinery
to a point of decision.
The current use of alternative models was prefigured in the late 1950's
through the pioneering work of Herbert Simon and his associates at Carnegie
Institute (now Carnegie-Mellon). Simon explained how through "subjectively
rational" behavior decision-makers "satisficed", that is, sought to achieve
not their asserted primary goals, but alternatives or sub-goals more feasible
of achievement and meeting minimally satisfactory criteria. 31 But even more
powerful notions for purposes of possible adaptation to foreign policy came
from Charles E. Lindblom, who made the definitive scholarly statement of how
administrators in fact make decisions. In 1959, when he wrote his path-breaking
article on the subject,32 the literature on policy formulation and decision-
making virtually without exception espoused, openly or tacitly, the Rational
Actor model. Today, thanks in part at least to Lindblom and his influence,
v irtually all theoretical and scholarly literature on those subjects represents
one form or another of critique of that model.
The gist of Lindblom's theory is that, unlike the hypothesized "rational-
comprehensive-deductive" model according to which decision-makers make a total
search of rationally-plausible alternatives and examine the roots of policy
31 See Herbert A. Simon, Administrative Behavior, 2nd ed. (New York:
Macmillan, 1957). Also James G. Mardh and Herbert Simon, Organizations (NewYork: Wiley, 1958), and James G. March, ed., Handbook of Organizations (Chicago:Rand McNally, 1965).
32 Charles E. Lindblom, "The Science of Muddling Through," Public
Administration Review, Spring 1959.
26/
choices, in fact they use a method of "successive-limited comparisons" --
what he labels "disjointed incrementalism" -- which deals not with roots but
with branches. In his world the deduction from desired values and goals -
which is the heart of the rational process-- in reality cannot be separated
from the actor's empirical analysis of the situation. As the actor does this
over time, his goals always interacting with his real-life situational needs
and constraints, policies are continuously revised. (Given the durability of
some general strategies and major policies, I always found the latter conclusion
somewhat of a hole in an otherwise persuasive line of argument. 3 3 )
Lindblom sums up his case thusly:
Theorists often ask the administrator togo the long way round to the solution of hisproblems; in effect ask him to follow the bestcanons of scientific method, when the adminis-trator knows that the best available theory willwork less wel than more modest incrementalcomparisons. 3
Another major impetus to the "revisionism" that has overtaken theorizing
and model-building about policy process is an analysis by two more of the35
Simon school- Cyert and March. In a work that probably never mentions foreign
policy but has become widely relied on by the new theorists of policy-making,
notably its concept of "bounded rationality", Cyert and March viewed organizations
essentially as coalitions of participants with disparate demands and changing
33Amitai Etzioni argued for a middle ground through a "system model" in
"Mixed Scanning: A Third Approach to Decision-Making," Public AdministrationReview, December 1967.
"The Science of Muddling Through," o cit., p. 87.
35 Cyert and March, A Behavioral Theory of the Firm, og. cit.
27/
foci of attention plua a limited ability to attend to all problems simultan-
eously. Taking the three major categories of organization activities ("goals",
"expectations", and "choices"), they outlined four "core concepts" that tied
together the variables: 1) Quasi-Resolution of Conflict, 2) Uncertainty
avoidance (i.e. solving pressing problems rather than developing long-run
strategies; using decision rules that emphasize short-run feedback; negotiating
with the environment ),3) Problemistic Search (limited to the particular problem),36
and 4) Organizational learning (adaptation over time).
With these influences in mind, we turn to the "alternative" models.
The Organizational Process Model
Drawing heavily on Simon, Lindblom, and Cyert and March, plus earlier
organizational theorists such as Max Weber, Talcott Parsons, Chester Barnard,
and F. J. Roethlisbergerthe outlines appeared of a theory of organization
behavior in which the end product, which Rational-Model-makers call in
voluntaristic terms "acts" and "choices", are better described as outputs
of a dynamic process that characteristically takes place in large organizations
functioning according to regular patterns of behavior. In the realm of public
policy the "unit of analysis" under the Rational Model (Allison's Model I),
which assumes a unitary actor, is "governmental choice." Under the Organization
Process Model, as indicated, action takes the form of "organization output."
Under this Model (Allison's Model II) the chief analytical elements to be
considered in the system are thus organizational actors, "factored problems"
and "fractionated power", parochial priorities and perceptions, sequential
36 Here as elsewhere I have borrowed from Graham Allison, who is extremely
helpful. See Essenr of Decision, op. cit.
.. . . . . iI ... . .. . . . . . . I... ... /I . .. . . .. . 1[.. . . [ Ill.. . ... .. . . ".. . . ... ."= ' . . . . I ' . ...... , I,''' . . . . .
28/
attention to goals (which are seen as constraints defining acceptable performance
in and by the organization), Standard Operating Procedures, central coordination
and control, and decisions by leaders.3 7
In this version of policy behavior the key notions remained essentially
those originally suggested by Simon, such as "bounded rationality" in real
life, contrasted with the "comprehensive rationality" of ideally "rational"
behavior; satisficing; search routines that stop with the first "good
enough" alternative; uncertainty avoidance; and the standard repertoires of
organizations known in the jargon as 'SOP's'.
Probably the bulk of internal reform efforts in the foreign policy
apparatus have centered on organizational factors. For example, the 1971
Task Force reports flagged failures in inter-agency coordination as reflecting
management weaknesses. Others have sought the levers which spell effective
control, linked to coordination of the parts. I.M. Destler chronicles eleven
general types of post-war solutions to this chronic problem, and demonstrates
in the process the high inconsistency among these "solutions." He regards
some of these organizational-type solutions as "covers" for the real and con-
tending political forces at issue.38 And indeed evidence for the underlying
premises of organization theory can be found in the reality of clashing interests
anchored in the disparate concerns of bureaus, agencies or departments all
allegedly harnessed to identical goals.
37 For application of the model to budgeting see A. Wildavsky, The Politics
of the Budgetary Process (Boston: Little, Brown, 1964).
38 I.M. Destler, Presidents. Bureaucrats, and Foreign Policy - The Politicsof Organizational Reform (Princeton Univ. Press, 1972), pp. 46ff.
29/
Writing of the Skybolt controversy, Halperin says "we can make no
greater mistake than to assume that the participants in the process look at
the issue in the same way." He goes on:
Organizational interests ... are for manya dominant factor in determining the faceof the issue which they see.
His moral is that leaders should understand that organizational interests
affect policy in terms of 1) information inputs, 2) the presentation of options,
3) freedom to choose options, and 4) implementation of policy.39
This in turn surfaces a crucial issue in this concept. For its central
contention, in operational terms, is that the alternative policy favored by
each organization (which I take to mean sub-units also) reflects each organization's
(or sub-unit) interest in controlling the situation rather than what Mbdel I
considers to be objective choices. Several observers note the tendency inherent
in such behavior, and familiar to us all, to serve up the desired alternative
framed by two obviously unacceptable extremes ("all-out war, surrender, and what
I propose").
Destler goes further, urging organizational reforms in foreign affairs
machinery aimed at reducing to less threatening proportions other problems
arising out of 'organizational behavior.' These he identifies as the nature
of decisions as compromises between people with narrow perspectives; issues
being resolved piecemeal; dangerous diversion from problems of the international
environment to play the necessary intra-governmental political games; the bias
39Morton H. Halperin, "Why Bureaucrats Play Games," Foreign Policy,
Spring 1971, pp. 72, 74, 88-89.
30/
of the overall system against change; its resistance to central control and
coordination; and its clumsiness in responding to unique situations. (He
recommends that the government sponsor external research that asks how to
redesign both organization and procedures to 'sub-optimize' within the system.0
There is great difficulty in defining goals under this set of thpno'arep!
approaches. I mentioned that interests of the players differ, apart from
a shared co-nn interest in the survival and well-being of the nation (which can
be interpreted as synonymous with a given agency or bureau's position). This
means that specific goals and objectives will differ (goals often defined as
taking longer than fifteen years to achieve, objectives achievable within
fifteen).
I myself know of no element of the policy process less susceptible to
sound analysis. Some of the schemes for more 'rational' policy process such
as PARA and Net Assessment tended to take as- givens the very goal statements
41most in need of fresh analysis. (I come back to this very real issue under
the heading of Planning.) There may be a suggestive analogy to
the Department of State process in the organization theory literature. Laurence
B. Mohr does not apply his goals research in the administrative sciences to
foreign policy, but some of his insights might be very suggestive given the
extreme difficulty the foreign policy process has with the refinement and
40 Presidents, Bureaucrats. and Foreign Policy, o. cit., p. 82.
41 A point well taken by Henry T. Nash in American Foreign Policy -
Response To A Sense of Threat (Homewood: Dorsey, 1973), p. 203. Of course theproblem remains unsolved of a State Department full of analysts who declaredPresidential objectives to be, upon analysis, infeasible.
31/
42specification of policy goals.
Most recently organization theorists have been trying to break out of
old molds by taking the premises of Model II and "sub-optimizing" them (to
use the current Jargon). Of particular interest here is the work of Alexander
George and his principle of "Multiple Advocacy." George sees structural
arrangements as instrumental in curing the perceived defects in foreign policy
decision-making. But he rejects the "reorganization" approach as such:
There appears to be no single structural formulaby means of which the chief executive and his staffcan convert the functional expertise and diversityof viewpoints of the many offices concerned withinternatlonal nffa-rs intr p.4... or.,1.. ffC ..policies and decisions.
Under the George system the chief foreign policy official would
be a "magistrate who listens in a structured setting to different, well-prepared
advocates, making the best case for alternative options." What this perhaps
idealized version of the NSC staff system requires to materialize is management
to create the basis for structured, balanced debate among policy advocates44
drawn from different parts of the organization.
We will return to this matter in discussing both planning and related
research in other fields. Suffice it here that along with George other
organization theorists such as Warren Bennis, Philip E. Slater, Alvin Toffler,
and Charles Perrow, are seeking new combinations of organization-cum-process
to overcome the known constrictions which the bureaucratic setting imposes on
the end product. At the outer margin of relevant theorizing may be found
42 See Laurence B. Mohr, "The Concept of Organizational Goal,"
American Political Science Review, June 1973.
Alexander L. George, "The Case for Multiple Advocacy in MakingForeign Policy," American Political Science Review, September 1972, p. 766.
44 Ibid., p. 751.
32/
Harlan Cleveland's suggestion for a type of structuring that radically
departs from those we know, in order to get things done:
The organizations that get things done willno longer be hierarchical pyramids withmost of the real control at the top. Therewill be systems - interlaced webs of tensionin which control is loose, power diffused,and centers of decision plural. 45
The Bureaucratic Politics Model 4 6
it is now widely recognized that organizations operatethrough webs of relationships far more complicated thanformal charts depict; that executive branch officialsare not just "neutral" implementers of "policies" handeddown by their superiors but play ongoing, day-to-dayroles in shaping these policies; and that the typicalway the government settles on particular courses ofaction is not through a group of high officials applyinga rational design to specific problems, but by a "plural-istic" process of political competition and compromise 47involving "players" both inside and outside the government.
If this, the most widely theorized-about descriptive model of State
Department behavior, strikes today's thoughtful working bureaucrat as belaboring
the obvious, the reason is that it does. Yet, as I noted earlier, no more
than fifteen years ago almost all theoretical literature about governmental
decisional processes automatically embodied the Rational Actor Model. Moreover,
45 Harlan Cleveland, The Future Executive - A Guide for Tomorrow'sManagers (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), p. 13.
46 Its most recent exponents (Allison and Halperin) prefer to call it a"conceptual scheme", "framework", or "analytical paradigm" (afterMerton) ratherthan a "model", but it is probably too late to turn around Allison's manyenthusiastic model-followers.
I.M. Destler, Presidents. Bureaucrats and Foreign Policy. p. cit., p. 41.
1.!
33/
as also noted, virtually all reforms advocated or implemented internally
still tend to assume the same model. My point remains that much decisional
behavior is "rational" in that model's terms, but cannot be adequately
explained without reference to the alternative models as well.
Thomas Kuhn is probably the best source as to why one dominant "paradigm"
eventually replaces another in the world of science.4 8 It may be dignifying
the political field too much to analogize to natural science, but perhaps not.
Social science has for some years believed that it ought to corroborate pure
intuitions and challenge normative judgment with data-based empirical theories,
and the explorers of Bureaucratic Politics Theory have done just that. Their
theorizing comes not from norms they necessarily value, but chiefly from
empirical case studies about how certain key decisions were in fact made. As
individuals have left the Executive Branch in recent years, they have contributed
substantially to the body of analysis that ties observed or recollected behavior
of foreign policy-makers with newer canons of theory.
In a sense this Model III can be regarded as a refinement or extension of
the Organizational Model (II). In essence, it sees foreign policy products
as outcomes of a bureaucratic-political process in which bargaining takes place49
among players positioned hierarchically in the government. The basic unit
of analysis is actions, through action channels, with decisions taking plact
along the way. Policy represents not outcomes, but "authoritative aspirations",
internal to a government, about outcomes. The imagery of games is central to
48 The Structure of Scientific Revolutiors(Chicago: University of Chicago, 1970).
Graham T. Allison, Essence of Decision, op. cit., pp. 144ff.
34/
this model. "Decision games" are played in converting various activities
into decisions; "policy games" are played in the process of converting
activities into policy; "action games" describe the interactive process of
activities that follow decisions. The "unitary actor" is replaced by the
pluralistic players whose stands are derived from parochial priorities and
perceptions, goals, interests, stakes, deadlines, and perspectives.
The governing questions are: "who plays?" "what determines the stands
players take?" (Don Price is credited with the much-quoted "where you stand
depends on where you sit"), a:,d "how are those stands aggregated in the shape
of governmental decisions and arrns?' 0
The basic concepts involved, apart from the notion of elite players
involved in a competitive game of bargaining based on hierarchical position
and organizational power, are spelled out by Destler: 1) diverse values and
goals generating alternate policies and means; 2) issues as a "flow", arising
bit by bit over time; 3) constraints, channels and maneuvers leading to
consensus-building and coalitions; and 4) policy as a bureaucratic political51
outcome., incrementally "a la Lindblom complete with zigs and zags.
The Bureaucratic Politics model began to enter the foreign policy
scholarly literature with a 1959 article by Roger Hilsman entitled, "The
,52Foreign Policy Consensus: An Interim Research Report" , a 1960 article by
50 Graham T. Allison and Morton H. Halperin, "Bureaucratic Politics:
A Paradigm and Some Policy Implications," in Richard Ullman and Raymond Tanter,eds., Theory and Practice in International Relations (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1972), pp. 46-47. This outstanding article contains a valuablecatalogue of action precepts.
51 Presidents, Bureaucrats, and Foreign Policy, op. cit., pp.55ff.
52 Journal of Conflict Resolution, December 1959 (and later in To Move
A Nation).
35/
53 54Samuel Huntington, and early writings of Richard Neustadt, all involving
criticism of the then-dominant Rational Actor Model. Other contributors
to the growing debate included Gabriel Almond in his classic American People55
and Foreign Policy, Lindblom, and again Lindblom and Braybrooke, cited earlier;
Warner Schilling in his analysis of the 1950 defense budget, 56and Burton Sapin,
Don Price, and others.
The debate went fully public, so to speak, with the seminal analysis,
referred to numerous times in this survey, of Graham T. Allison, eventually
published as Essence of Decision. By "processing" well-done interview data
on U.S. decision-making in the Cuban Missile CristR- through the lntcllcctual
and methodological filters of the three chief behavior models, Allison threw
into sharp relief the very different perspectives available to analysts in
the search for better explanation - and prediction - of decisional behavior.
"Strategic Planning and the Political Process," Foreign Affairs,January 1960, and also The Common Defense: Strategic Programs in NationalPolitics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961).
See Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership (New York:Wiley, 1960).
55 (New York: Praeger, 1960.)
56 In Warner R. Schilling, Paul Y. Hammond and Glenn H. Snyder,
Strategy, Politics and Defense Budgets (New York: Colubmia University Press, 1962).
36/
The Allison breakthrough was followed by John D. Steinbruner's Ph.D.
thesis at M.I.T. on the Multilateral Force case, using Allison's three
,,57process models plus a fourth - the "Cognitive Processing Model, and by
the insightful and provocative articles by Halperin, and Allison and Halperin,
referred to above.
Harlan Cleveland in his newest book argues that bureaucratic politics
represents not just a theory of behavior, but a general trend in all organi-
zations "away from the more formal, hierarchical, order-giving way of doing
business and toward the more informal, fluid workways of bargaining,,58
brokerage, advice and consent." But already the critiques of bureaucratic
politics theory are emerging. Robert Rothstein, for instance, believes
something essential and unique is lost in adapting to foreign affairs the59
standard propositions concerning informal bureaucratic behavior, Nevertheless,
the school pressing this model has strong credentials and persuasive partial
explanations of recent history (see below for Cases). Above all, it has the
metaphysical advantage of a "Haunted House Doctrine."
60
57 See The Mind and Milieu of Policy-Makers: A Case Study of the MLF,unpublished Ph.D.thesis,"M I.T. Politihbl Science Departnent, Fe'bruary 1968.
58 The Future Executive p. eit. Cleveland writes:
•. .when you hear an associate explainingto his staff the principle of constructiveambiguity, put him down as an executivefor the world of tomorrow. (p. 24)
59 Planning. Prediction and Policy-Making in Foreign Affairs: Theoryand Practice (Boston: Little, Brown, 1972), p. 205.
60 If I say a house is haunted, and you go in and look around and
don't see any ghosts, all I have to say is "You see, they won't come out whenyou're looking," or, more simply, "How can you be sure?"
311
The Psychological Approach: Attitudes and Interpersonal Relations
A. In all fairness, I was not the one to stand up in a meetingand say that this should be stopped ... so ... I kind of
drifted along.Q. What did you do about it?A. I did not do anything.Q. Why didn't you?
A. In all honesty, probably because of the fear of group pressurethat would ensue of not being a team player.
Testimony before Senate Select Committee
on Watergate by Herbert L. Porter, (New
York Times, June 8, 1973)
No survey of theorizing relevant to the policy process can evade the
analyses of phenomena of individual and group behavior. The Department of
State is, after all, a collection of human beings. The policy process is
of course in part a set of S.O.P.s and known routines, established by authority
and by tradition, and employing understood modes of communication.
But it is people who, after becoming acculturated, propel the machinery.
Their behavior in groups corresponds, in broadly recognizable ways,
to the behavior of other human collectives interacting with each other to
produce a common intellectual product. The behavior embedded in the steps
of that process, i.e. issue-recognition, discussion, initiative, proposal,
argumentation, compromise, and acceptance are probably as well understood as
human small group phenomena as they are qua steps in a more abstract dynamic
sequence called the "policy process."
There exists an extensive scholarly literature on small-arouo
behavior and dynamics. The special element of that behavior that seems most
potentially illuminating for our purposes can be summed up as consensus pressure.
The pressures on individual members of small groups to conform to the
apparent or emerging will of the majority in the group are of course notorious.
Perhaps the classic research was by S.E. Asch, who studied the personal and
social conditions that induce individuals to resist or to yield to group
pressures even "when the latter are perceived to be contrary to fact" - a
phenomenon that has become known as the "Asch Effect. '61 It should be noted
that, unlike the usual stereotyped belief, some of Asch's subjects
acted contrary to the majority and on the basis of their independent judgment,
despite pressures for consensus. The majority, however, did not.
The fact of consensus pressures in hierarchically-structured organization,
as well as in peer groups raises profound questions about the objectivity of
the decisions or collective recommendations arrived at in the policy process.
Even if taken as a given, it is important to be aware of its workings to spot
potentially dangerous erosion in the independent thinking on which sound group
recommendations depend. The reported reticence of Departmental and other
government officials to voice their misgivings before the Bay of Pigs fiasco,
or at certain decision points in the Indochina War, hardly served the broader
national interest, however understandable the unwillingness to go out on a limb.
I shall have something to say under Planning on correctives to this danger.
Here I simply point to a substantial body of possibly relevant theoretical62 63
material in the area of small group behavior and group dynamics. It seems
61 See. S.E. Asch, "Effects of Group Pressure Upon the Modification and
Distortion of Judgments," originally published in Harold Guetzkow, ed., Groups,Leadership and Men (Pittsburgh: Carnegie, 1951).
62 Irving Janis cites as pioneers on the power of face-to-face groups
to set norms that influence members: Charles H. Cooley and George H. Mean,early sociologists; William Graham Sumner; Kurt Lewin, the social psychologistwho emphasized group cohesiveness in group dynamics; Wilfred Bion; Leon Festinger,who studied "cognitive dissonance"; Harold Kelley, Stanley Schachter and DorwinCartwright.
63 For application to policy-making in government see particularly theworks of Karl Deutsch, Alexander George, and Joseph de Rivera.
39/
undeniable that at least some of this work is directly applicable to failures
(or successes) of the policy process within the government.
Irving Janis has pulled together a good many of these insights in Victims
64of Groupthink: A Psychological Study of Foreign-Policy Decision and Fiascoes.
In the spirit of Nietsche, who said that madness is the exception in individuals
but the rule in groups, Janis' hypothesis is that the source of trouble is to
be found not in individuals or organizations, but in "cohesive groups", even
the most conscientious among them, in which "subtle constraints" operate.
His analysis spells out six major defects of decision-making that contribute
to failures to solve problems adequately: (1)limited range of alternatives,
(2) failure to reexamine the majority preference regarding unconsidered
negatives, (3) neglect of actions originally unsatisfactory to group,(4) ignoring
experts on cost-benefits, (5) selective bias toward factual information, outside
experts, and media, (6) too little attention to the hazards of possible bureau-
65cratic inertia, sabotage, or accidents.
Janis postulates three fairly devastating hypotheses about the consequences
of this phenomenon that are worth quoting in full:
The more amiability and esprit de corpsamong the members of a policy-making group,the greater is the danger that independentcritical thinking will be replaced by group-think, which is likely to result in irrationaland dehumazing actions directed againstoutgroups.
64 (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1967)
65 Ibid., p. 10.
66 Ibid., p. 13.
40/
Members of any small cohesive group tend tomaintain esprit de corps by unconsciouslydeveloping a number of shared illusions andrelated norms that interfere ytith criticalthinking and reality-testing.
The more cohesive the group and the morerelevant the issue to the goals of the
group, the greater is the inclinationthe members to reject a nonconformist.
Janis observes these defects to appear in eight symptoms which his
research persuades him contribute substantially to failures to solve problems
adequately: illusion of invulnerability, collective effort to rationalize,
sense of inherent morality, stereotype of enemy, pressure on dissenters,
self-censorship, emergence of self-appointed "mindguards."6 9
The heart of the Janis thesis is thus that the often valued phenomena
of agreed norms and esprit de corps are in fact enemies of independent
critical thinking, and may lead to irrational and potentially destructive
"groupthink " based on shared illusions. But he adds that the "groupthink"
hypothesis and its associated theory do not replace the usual explanations
of policy disasters, but helpfully supplement them.
Alexander George in his interesting work on "multiple advocacy" (discussed
under "Planning") cites Bower as demonstrating that the quality of the search
and analysis steps crucial to a rational decisional process may be significantly
improved by disagreementsin the group; conversely, groups are less successful
problem-solvers when they are concerned solely with "what is best for the
Ibid._.i., pp. 35-36.
68 Ibid., p. 5.
69 Ibid., pp. 197ff.
41/
,70group." In the same spirit he cites Maier and associates on the proposition
that conflict within a group can have a constructive effect on the quality
of its choices.7 1
The other relevant strain of attitudinal theorizing about policy process,
rather than focusing on the group, centers on individual attitudes, perceptions,
personality types, belief systems, "sets', and cultural molds.
An attempted bridge between group and individual behavior in the State
Department setting was Argyris' possibly tactless yet officially-sponsored
analysis of the State Department's "living system" which adduced interesting
evidence of qualities that contributed to what Argyris deemed "marginal
ineffectiveness." 72 The norms Argyris reported observing in action (norms
of behavior which he says Department personnel also agreed they recognized)
were "a tendency to withdraw from open discussion of interpersonal diffi-
culties and conflict," and lack of openness about "substantive issues that
can be threatening to people especially superiors and peers." 73
70 See Alexander L. George, "The Case for Multiple Advocacy in Making
Foreign Policy," 2k. cit. The work he refers to is Joseph L. Bower, "The Roleof Conflict in Economic Decision-Making Groups: Some Empirical Results,"Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 1965, p. 757.
71 N.R.F. Maier, Problem-Solving and Creativity in Individuals and Groups
(Belmont: Brooks/Coles, 1970). See also Rothstein, op. cit., on this samegeneral thesis, p. 49.
72Chris Argyris, Some Causes of Organizational Ineffectiveness Within
the Department of State, Occasional Paper No. 2, Center for Internati nal SystemsResearch, Department of State, Publication No. 8180, January 1967.
Ibid., pp. 4,5.
42/
Argyris saw the consequent withdrawal from confrontation as generating
several damaging psychological effects, such as lowering of self-trust and
self-confidence, and increasing some feeling of personal failure and guilt.74
At a more theoretical level Bonham and Shapiro have recently reported
research based on their theory that beliefs of foreign policy decision-makers
are central to the study of decision outputs since they represent the
officials' congealed experience and "expectations". His "cogntive map" will
reveal the causal linkages between "affective concepts", "cognitive concepts",
and"policy concepts." This all should help policy officials improve their75
theories about international politics.
Down at the least theoretical level, but with some authoritative empirical
insights into problems arising in the process, is found Professor
Neustadt's assertion that the principal policy-makers in the Skybolt and Suez
fiascoes were characterized by "muddled perceptions, stifled communications,
disappointed expectations (and) paranoid reactions."'76
Snyder, Bruck and Sapin constructed their basic framework of foreign
policy decision-making from sources in sociology and social psychology, resting
in part on perceptions of decision-makers and their "definitionof the situation."' 7 7
74 JI,Ibid., p. 29.
Michael J. Shapiro and G. Matthew Bonham, "Cognitive Processes andForeign Policy Decision-Makers," International Studies Quarterly, June 1973,p. 2.
76 Richard E. Neustadt, Alliance Politics (New York: Columbia, 1970), p. 56.
Richard C. Snyder, H.W. Bruck, Burton Sapin, Eds., Foreign PolicyDecision-Making (Glencoe: Free Press, 1962).
_ 0
43/
Others drew on equivalent sources to explain process. Leventhal,
in a critical case study, saw the sources of action not in "incompetence"
or accidents of timing, "nor were those actions unconnected or capricious.
(They were) natural consequences of the attitudes and assumptions with
which American officials" approached the problem. 78
Earlier Anthony Downs in his study of bureaucracy suggested personnel
typologies which he argued showed the relation of type to motive ("purely
self-interested" officials were divided among "climbers" and "conservers"
while those with mixed motives included "zealots", "advocates", and "states-79
men.")
Another approach to psychological elements in the policy process is
found in Steinbruner's Congitive Processing model, derived from cognitive
psychology, in which the individual actor is treated as an "information
processor."
Finally, much can, I think, be learned from Robert Jervis' extraordinarily
insightful "hypotheses on misperception", based on wide historical evidence;
each represents a warning signal to foreign policy operators operating as
"information processors", as small group members, and as individuals with
78 Abraham F. Leventhal, The Dominican Intervention (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1972), p. 270.
79 Anthony Downs, Inside Bureaucracy (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967),pp. 88-111.
80 See John D. Steinbruner, Some Effects of Decision Procedures on Policy
Outcomes: A Series of Experiments Using Policy Games, M.I.T. Center for Inter-national Studies, Publication No. C/70-9, February 1970.
44/
built-in mechanisms aimed at internal stability, sometimes at the cost
of grievously transforming the true content of data received concerning
81their professional concerns.
Unlike some of the descriptive or purely diagnostic analysis, writers
in this realm seem to have been freer with prescriptions for corrective action,
possibly because psychologists and psychiatrists, unlike empirical social
scientists, are openly in the business of prescribing therapy. Some recommenda-
tions in this realm are found in the final chapter.
The Information Aspect of the Process
Two major criticisms of the policy process focus on the information
input end of the equation, and should be considered at least briefly. 1)
First is the rather more straightforward issue of information availability
and handling. The Bendix report to the Departnent evaluating the PARA82
system criticizes the lack of any general system for following and organizing
the progress of low-priority events. The Bendix contractors recommend setting
up "Monitoring Files" based on PARA categories. (I myself question the
desirability of structuring computerized Department files by analogy to PARA.)
This of course raises the question, not really within my purview here, of
systematizing the torrent of information that comes in, along with the
institutional memory where it is stored. I will only say that the key to
that problem seems to lie in bridging the still unbridged gap between the
81 Robert Jervis, "Hypotheses on Misperception," World Politics 1968 (xx).
82 PAPA: Process, Problems and Potential, Project PARES Final Report,
BSR 3369, July 1972, Social Sciences Department, Bendix Aerospace Systems
Division, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
45/
efficient, systems-trained librarian's impulse to index and store data
to reflect the full complexity of the world, versus busy and impatient
substantive users who want a system they can easily use, with categories that
are familiar, yet substantively sophisticated beyond the usual capability
of the 'sub-culture' charged with 'computerizing files'. The task remains
to match the two values operationslly, perhaps by mixing the two 'sub-cultures'.
Some interesting social science-related research seeks to give computers
an English-language capability for bridging the gap between machines and
officials speaking with normal vocabulary and syntax. There is work planned
at M.I.T. to do this in the field of foreign affairs83 drawing on theoretical
work in both artificial intelligence and computer science, using CASCON as
the data source.
'The reference to CASCON (Computer-Aided System for Handling Information84
on Local Conflicts) reflects the existence of a growing array of computerized
data systems designed to improve both the information quality and the memory-
based analytical stage of the foreign policy process. I can only refer briefly
to other work on conflict and events data by scholars such as McClelland, Singer,
Russett, Alker, Azar, Coplin, et al. The most avant-garde research, as mentioned
in the introduction, seeks to actually simulate behavior of nations or decision-
makers in conflict situations, and is not far enough along to treat here in
83 Doctoral dissertation in progress by G. Allen Moulton.
84 See Lincoln P. Bloomfield and Robert R. Beattie, "Computers and
Policy-Making: The CASCON Experiment," p. cit, and for operationaluse, CASCON II - User's Manual, M.I.T. Center for International Studies,Publication No. C/71-10. August 1971.
46/
any detail.8 5
2)The other critique is more troublesome, going as it does to one of the
primary functions of the trained FSO- political reporting.
I confess to holding the initial assumption, doubtless based on imperfect
memory, that one element of the policy process not particularly requiring
repair was the political reporting both by the foreign service and by intelli-
gence-gathering agencies.
But it is necessary to take seriously charges of a generalized lack in
political reporting of systematic analysis grounded in appropriate theory, and
even lack of coherent perspectives concerning broad trends and system-level,
rather than purely local, developments.
One of the case studies recently commissioned by the Department is
devastating on the subject of reporting from the field. Centering on immediate
events and personalities, using unanalyzed material, dealing in summary form
only with the consequences of alternatives that might be chosen, the reporting
Einaudi sampled was restricted to "today's or last week's events, rather than
broader trends or movements. ...only rarely did reports attempt to relate
the material in question to the broader issues at hand. References to trends ...
were generally made without systematic analysis."86
85 See, e.g. CACIS of the University of Michigan, reported by James A.
Moore and Raymond Tanter in "Computer-Aided Conflict Information System I"
cit.
86 Luigi Einaudi, Assistance to Peru: A Case Study. 1963-68, p. 42.
47/
Another excellent INR-sponsored study (of the U.S.-Soviet civil air
agreement) also found the usual characteristics of specialized bureaucracies
"aggravated by the community's primitive understanding of the 'other side."' 8 7
Numbers of academic critics urge applying to overseas political reporting
the Bureaucratic Politics 1kdel, which they argue would illuminate the
behavior, both observed and predicted, of the government under scrutiny.
Still other academic critics focus on the lack of a "systematic map" of
analytical reporting, and Richard Neustadt, Andrew Marshall and Graham Allison
all have concrete proposals along these lines.
The point all make is cogently summed up by that superb observer Charles
Darwin, that no one could be a good observer unless he was an active theorizer.
I must confess that one of the things that overcame my own skepticism about
these criticisms was a statement by an official of the Inspector-General corps
that IG was very dissatisfied with the quality of current political reporting.
A final point of concern is the possible skewing of presumably
objective diplomatic and intelligence estimates by the phenomenon, noted in
the last section, of ''ognitive dissonance!' A good recent statement of the
problem is by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in his first press conference:
And there is the tendency of most intelligenceservices -- and, indeed of most senior officials; and,indeed, of some newspapermen -- to fit the facts intoexisting preconceptions and to make them consistentwith what is anticipated ... there is probably atendency to make observed facts fit your preconceivedtheories. This is one of8ghe gravest dangers of allintelligence assessments.
87 Hans Heymann, Jr., The U.S.-Soviet Civil Air Agreement From Inception
To Inauguration: A Case Study, prepared for the Department of State, R-1047-DOS, July 1972, p. vii. See also Rothstein's complaint that "the FSO is nottrained to perform (observing and reporting) systematically." op. cit., p. 38.
88 Press conference October 12, 1973, Department of State News Release, (cont'd)
48/
Some recomendations for possibly beneficial applied research in this
domain are to be found in the final chapter.
The Planning Component
I must admit bias at the outset in discussing this crucial element
of the process, since I have beet. publicly critical of the weaknesses of
the long-range planning capability of the U.S. government in foreign affairs.
New steps are reported to strengthen the Department's Policy Planning capacity
which was severely foreshortened in 1969 when S/P was abolished and S/PC set
up with a much reduced planning arm. On verra.
Regardless of its fluctuating fortunes, the planning function has
suffered over a 27-year period from problems which increasingly look structural
and deep-seated. They are exemplified by two statements. The first is by
the master of classical diplomacy, Sir Harold Nicolson, who argued that there
p. 10. A related point of course is the distillation of significant informationout of the mass of incoming signals, a capacitycrucial to the national securitythat was brilliantly analyzed by Roberta Wohlstetter in Pearl Harbcr Warningand Decision (Stanford Univer., 1962).Connected to this classic problem is the failure noted by Harvey de Weerd:"It was not the absence of intelligence which led us into trouble but ourunwillingness to draw unpleasant conclusions from it", in "Strategic Surprisein the Korean War," Orbis, 1962, 6, p. 451.
49/
really can be no planning in foreign affairs:
Nobody who has not watched 'policy' expressingitself in day-to-day action, can realize howseldom is the course of events determined bydeliberately, planned purpose, or how often
what in retrospect appears to have been a fullyconscious intention was at the time governedand directed by that most potent of all factors- 'the chain of circumstance'. Few indeed arethe occasions on which any statesman sees his
objective clearly before him and marches towardit with undeviating stride; numerous indeed arethe occasions when a decision or an event, whichat the time seemed wholly unimportant, leadsalmost fortuitously to another decision whichis no less incidental, until, link by link, thechain of circumstance is forged.89
The other telling (and ironic) quotation is from the man who presided
over S/P in what is commonly regarded as its heyday. Speaking of his role,
George Kennan wrote:
... there were times when I felt like a courtjester, expected to enliven discussion, privilegedto say the shocking things, valued as an intellectualgadfly on hides of slower colleagues, but not to betaken fully seriously when it came to the final,
responsible decisions of policy.
The tension that has always existed between planning and operations
in the Department is endemic to many other organizations as well. It is
natural, and not a bad thing up to the point where in a kind of Gresham's Law
89 The Congress of Vienna (Quoted by Sprouts in Foundations
of National Power, p. 106)
90 Memoirs, 1925-1950, (Boston: Little Brow. , 1967) p. 427.
50/
"operations drives out planning". Who defines "relevance" is a crucial
determinant, and in any conceivable real-life situation it will continue
to be true, as Destler wrote (and some noted theorists learned when they
joined the government):
The strategic thinker remains an exclamationpoint in the margins of foreign policy-makingif he does not join the bureaucratic battlesto give operational meaning and effect togeneral objectives. 91
Certainly some insights are shed on this problem by the analysis of
bureaucratic consensus pressures in hierarchical organizational structures,
discussed below and reinforced by the great majority of anecdotal writings
about the decision-making process in recent years when it was under strain --
precisely the time consensus pressures mount and "deviant" views are de-
creasingly tolerated.92
This is not the place to diagnose the substantive problem in detail;
but my own hypothesis is that three functions essential to successful policy-
planning are weak or non-existent: middle and long-range, as contrasted with
short-range thinking; explicit forecasting, using the growing arsenal of inter -
91 I.M. Destler, Presidents, Bureaucrats and Foreign Policy, op. cit.,
p. 139.92 See, as examples Chester L. Cooper, The Lost Crusade: America in
Vietnam (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1970) and David Halberstam, The Best andthe Brightest (New York: Random House, 1974), and Townsend Hoopes, The Limitsof Intervention (New York: David McKay, 1969).
51/
disciplinary tools; and adversary arguments in-house that go to first-order
assumptions when necessary.
If my definition of the problem so far is accepted, there is some
available theorizing that might be relevant to analyzing possible structural
defects in the setting and premises of State Department policy planning.
1) The issues of longer-term thinking and of forecasting converge in the
generalized sense that the system is not good at anticipating longer-term
trends and developments, and that the United States is constantly caught by
surprise, or ill-equipped to deal with change. One may quarrel with the
details of this diagnosis; but it is so widespread, both in and out of
93government, that for our purposes it is worth accepting as an arguable
premise.
Some earlier work on forecasting theories and techniques, such as the
Scenarios of Herman Kahn 9 4 and the Delphi Technique of Gordon and Helmer 9 5
were suggestive but hardly powerful enough to overcome the entirely natural
93See for example the assertion by Task Force XIII that the Department
does leasL well in anticipating events. Diplomacy for the 70's. A Programof Management Reform for the Department of State (Department of State Publication8851, December 1970), p. 553.
94 See Chapter 5, "Some Strange Aids to Thought," Thinking about theUnthinkable (New York: Horizon, 1962).
95T. J. Gordon and Olaf Helmer, Report on a Long-Range Forecasting
Study, RAND paper P-2982, September 1964.
52/
predominance of seemingly urgent short-run requirements and perspectives.
96Other disciplines offered econometric modelling , technological
assessment and forecasting,9 7 and techniques for deriving "social indicators"98
but without persuasive linkages to the problems faced by the Department of
State in its principal areas of concern.
A more recent effort, by Professor Choucri of M.I.T. and Dr. Thomas Robinson
of RAND, seeks to bring together a wide range of theory and technique in the
specific focus of foreign policy and international relations forecasting.9 9
A selection of other chapter headings suggests the breadth of possible approaches.
Criteria for Valid Forecasting
The Use of Expert Opinion
Decision Analysis
Process Models: Markov Models
Alternative Futures and Alternative Regime-Types
Gaming: Prospective for Forecasting
Applications of Econometric Analysis
96 See e.g. Nazli Choucri, "Applications of Econometric Analysis" in
Choucri and Robinson, Eds., Forecasting in International Relations, forthcoming.
See e.g. Eric Jantsch, Technological Forecasting in Perspective(Paris: OECD, 1967)
98 See Raymond Bauer, Ed., Social Indicators (Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1966)
Forecasting in International Relations, op. cit.
53/
Using Technological Methods of Forecasting
System Dynamics: An Approach to Complex Systems
Early Warning Systems
Using the Past: Retrospective Forecasting
Short-Range Forecasting: The Imperatives of Tomorrow
Forecasting in Cross-National Perspective: Europe
Forecasting in the Context of International Organizations
The other non-procedural issue is the extent to which offical policy
planning is free to challenge first-order assumptions on which current
policy rests. bst planning has been deemed "useful" only if it signs on to
current definitions of national interest and broad goals and strategies, and
limits its analytical and critical powers to challenging the second-and
third-order premises of official policy.1 00
Task Force )(III of the recent Department-wide reform effort recommended
a built-in adversary procedure which would appraise and review ongoing policies101
and recommend alternatives. The most closely-analyzed diagnosis and
prescription probably comes from Alexander George in his "Multiple Advocacy"
approach. His own prescriptive "process model" draws on Downs' stages of
100 For elaboration of this question see the author's "Foreign Policy
for Disillusioned Liberals," in Foreign Policy, Winter 1972-73, also forthcomingIn Search of American Foreign Policy: The Humane Use of Power (New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1974).
101Diplomacy for the 70's, 9k. cit.
54'
102"search", "evaluation" and "choice", discussed earlieg as well as
notions of bureaucratic politics and techniques of "partisan mutual adjustment"
elaborated by Lindblom. The heart of George's thesis is his injunction to
decision-makers to harness diverse views and interests in aid of more rational
policy, rather than discouraging internal disagreements over policy. His
prescription to accomplish this is the technique of "multiple advocacy", which103
he describes as a competitive but balanced policy system.
In theoretical terms this is described as a "mixed system" combining the
pluralistic features of the bureaucratic politics model and the "partisan
mutual adjustment" model with the norms of a "centralized management model."
Acknowledging that little empirical evidence exists to clarify the virtues
of an openly competitive system, George advances his hypotheses nevertheless
(and, in my opinion, with considerable power 10 ).
His theories are reinforced by evidence from psychological studies of
decision-making, some of which were cited earlier. George cites "lab studies
of Decision-Making groups (which) provide some evidence that conflict within
the group may have a constructive effect on its problem-solving activity and
on the quality of its choices." 1 0 5 Another relevant laboratory study employs
a "multiactivity model" of decision functions that usefully discriminates between
the crucial elements of search, analysis and choice explicated by Downs. It
102 Anthony Downs, Inside Bureaucracy, op. cit.
103 Alexander L. George, "The Case for Multiple Advocacy in Making Foreign
Policy," op. ct., pp. 751 ff.
104 A proposal along similar lines will be found in the author's forthcoming
book In Search of American Foreign Policy: The Humane Use of Power, op. cit.
105 E.g., N.R.F. Maier and associates, Problem-Solving and Creativity in
Individuals and Groups (Belmont, California: Brooks/Coles, 1970), p. 757.
55/
found that the quality of search and analysis may be significantly improved
by disagreement in the group. Also, groups were not successful problem-solvers106
when they were concerned solely with what is best for the group.
All in all, George finds these results and the models on which they were
based very relevant "for designing management models to cope with or capitalize
upon the phenomenon of bureaucratic politics." 1 07
If one of the weaknesses in the planning sector of the policy process
has been the short time-frame preferred on grounds of relevance to the operator,
another has surely been the reluctance to challenge assumptions and premises
underlying policy at their primary level. Both these factors - time-frame
and assumptions - lead back to the issue of foreign policy forecasting (see
above) about which some recommendations are made at the end.
In recent years the Department has experimented with forms of planning
that sought to relate policy objectives to resource allocation. CASP, PARA,
and the never-adopted Net Assessment technique contributed in their ways to
better management.
But even before PARA was terminated in its present form, it was possible
to observe that the things PARA (and Net Assessment) could not do, and thus
usually took as givens, were often the very elements of the problem on which
better planning was most needed - the definition of interests, goals, and
objectives. Any planning system that assumes these in order to do something
106 George cites here the work of Joseph L. Bower, "The Role of Conflict
in Economic Decision-Making Groups and Some Empirical Results," Quarterly Journal
of Economics, May 1965.
107 "The Case for Multiple Advocacy," op. cit., p. 757.
56/
else may have internal operating value; but it does not address the central
weakness of the policy process, a weakness that newer forms of planning might
help to redress. Social science theory cannot revolutionize the process; but
as I suggest in the recommendations, it may point to methods of analysis that
go significantly beyond those presently in use.
This suggests a final aid to planning -- the so-called Political Game
(or, as we rechristened it at M.I.T., the Political Exercise or POLEX). The
technique is well-known now, originating in the Social Science Division of RAND
in the early 1950's10 8, adapted by the present author as an adjunct to policy
research at M.I.T. in the later 1950's109, and used since 1961 by the Joint
War Games Agency (now S.A.G.A.).
The S.A.G.A. games (some of which I have directed) are classified and
omitted here, as are many others which have as their primary aim teaching or
uncontrolled, serendipitous adventures. (The "rival" form of gaming -- Harold
110Guetzkow's Inter Nation Simulation -- was more rigorous but less focused on
realistic policy actions and alternatives.)
108 See Herbert Goldhamer and Hans Speier, "Some Observations on Political
Gaming," World Politics, 1959 (XII).109 For a review of the POLEX to the present time, see L. P. Bloomfield
and Cornelius J. Gearin, "Games Foreign Policy Experts Play," Orbis, Vol. XVI,No. 4, Winter 1973.
110See Simulation in International Relations (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-
Hall, 1963).
56a
With apologies for introducing another of my own researches, it
unfortunately seems true that the only recent social science experimentation
with the POLEX as a planning tool was our own during the late 1960's. In
the M.I.T. CONEX series, as before, our players were senior professionals.
Our conclusion was that it was indeed possible to expose more precise policy
questions to this kind of laboratory exercise. With the aid of more rigorously
controlled variables, along with observation and measurement devices, it proved
possible to explore the decisional process hitherto regarded in the policy
111sciences as a "black box" between independent and dependent variables.
IllSee Lincoln P. Bloomfield, Cornelius J. Gearin, et al., Anticipating
Conflict Control Policies - The CONEX Games as a Planning Tool, M.I.T. Centerfor International Studies, Pub. No. C/70-10, February 1970.
57/
III. THE CASE-STUDY APPROACH
It is natural to look at historical cases of decision-making as a source
of knowledge and precept concerning the process, and as a possible guide to
future policy. However, the chief unknown continues to be the extent to which
valid generalizations can be made across cases. This represents a profound
philosophical issue that has engaged historians since the memory of man runneth
not to the contrary. Some fairly recent case studies of foreign policy
decisions accepted the norm of historical uniqueness, and took the form 1of "pure" historical description (which to many historians is reason enough
to do such studies). In some of these "pure" histories broader lessons have
otcourse been drawn to the extent that some general inferences, propositions
or hypotheses were generated or inspired by the assembled facts. Many of them
make far better reading than typical social science literature.
Some representative examples in the present era of this traditional genre
would be Joseph Jones' The Fifteen Weeks, Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August,
Elie Abel, The Missile Crisis, M. Lichterman "To The Yalu and Back" in E. Stein's
American Civil-Millitary Decisions: A Book of Case Studies, and James C. Thompson,
Jr., "How Could Vietnam Happen? An Autopsy" that appeared in the Atlantic Monthly
of April 1968.
In the same traditional genre are two case studies recently commissioned
by INR - the excellent account of The U.S.-Soviet Civil Air Agreement by Hans
Heymann, Jr., and the Okinawa Reversion study by Peter W. Colm, Rosemary Hayes,
and Joseph A. Yager.
58/
As I said, some of these inferred potentially generalizable conclusions
from their sui generis case; for instance, Heymann's interesting conditions
for success (professionals with good esprit, low stakes in the issue, general
adoption of a "Presidential-level" view, minimal Congressional interaction,
and close liaison with the object of the exercise; also clear separation
between Presidential decision and bureaucratic implementation, and use of
specialists rather than generalist FSO's ).
Indeed, one of the early examples - Bernard Cohen's study of the Japanese
Peace Treaty - was focused on the domestic political process as a suggestive
theoretical frame.2
However, there is really no doubt that far more feedback value can be
derived from case studies for corrective or instructive learning purposes if
they are designed in terms of a more explicit theoretical or conceptual frame-
work. At a minimum, this may simply mean an a priori set of general propositions
or hypotheses, or a theoretically grounded format for analysis that enables
the historian to test the evidence he collects. At a maximum, formats will
be developed that lay the groundwork for other cases to be studied on a compara-
tive basis with results that can be cumulated. 3
1 The U.S.-Soviet Civil Air Agreement From Inception to Inauguration:
A Case Study prepared for the Department of State, R-1047-DOS, July 1972.
2 Bernard C. Cohen, The Political Process and Foreign Policy - The Making
of the Japanese Peace Settlement (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957).
On the desirability of cumulative case studies for cheory-buildingpurposes, see: for example, Sidney Verbs, "Some Dilemmas in Comparative Research,'World Politics, October 1967; Bruce M. Russett, "International Behavior Research:Case Studies and Cumulation," in M. Haas and H.S. Kariel (eds.), Approaches tothe Study of Political Science , 1970, 425-443; Oran R. Young, The Politics ofForce, 1968, pp. 417-421; Harry Eckstein, "Case-Study and Theory in Macropolitics"(MW) Princeton University, 1971.
W!J9
At the root of this assertion lies the conviction that while every
case is of course unique in that it will never happen again in exactly the
same way, there are discernible and potentially instructive patterns of action
and behavior, and decision-makers can benefit from a more systematic learning
process.
An encouraging number of recent case studies have been researched within
the spirit of this conviction, although unfortunately most have had to rely
exclusively on published sources. They varied widely in the conceptual frame-
work they chose, whether organizational behavior theory, bargaining theory, or
other specified hypotheses. But all had in comon the specification of a
coherent conceptual scheme that made them potentially replicable.
One isolated but fascinating example is Roberta Wohlstetter's classic
4Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision , employing a mode cf analysis involving
communication theory. In a totally different vein psychologist Irving L. Janis
fortified his provocative Victims of Groupthink5 with a set of case studies
embodying a coherent perspective, aimed at hypothesis construction, and hopefully
additive to the process of generalization about the policy process.
in many ways the model for others was the case study of the Korean War
by Snyder and Paige, notably their conviction that "case studies of decisions
made after the fact will contribute to the formulation of predictive hypotheses
that can be tested in evolving situations." 6 Per contra. the "observer not
concerned with (answering the hypothesized questions posed ab initio) will only
Stanford, 1962.
Victims of Groupthink: A Psychological Study of Foreign-Policy Decisionsand Fiascoes (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1967).
6 Richard C. Snyder and Glenn D. Paige, "The United States Decision to
Resist Aggression in Korea - The Application of an Analytical Scheme," inSnyder, Bruck and Sapin, Foreign Policy Decision-Making (Glencoe: Free Press,
1962), p. 208.
60/
accidentally provide the necessary empirical foundations for another observer
to do so." To avoid that anti-scientific trap they postulated a "frame-work
for analysis" designed to bridge the gap between extant theories of organi-
zational behavior and of foreign policy formation. Three variables would
tell them what data to collect; organizational roles and relationships;
communications and information; and motivation. 7
Building on this case method were several further works of Richard Snyder,8
including his Foreign Policy Decision-Making and with J.D. Robinson, "Decision-
Making in International Politics. ' 9 In his later book on The Korean Decision
Paige suggested using a single case as an "analytical construct" which should
be researched within a "semi-structured research design" that combines a
10priori concepts and hypotheses with an open mind toward unforeseen elements -
a sensible suggestion.
Another set of useful case studies (Laos, Cuba, and Vietnam) by Alexander
George and his associates invented a theoretical framework aimed at generating
theory on the uses and limits of what they called "coercive diplomacy,"
Ibid., pp. 210-214.
8Richard Snyder et al. (Glencoe: Free Press, 1962).
9 In H. Kelman, Ed., International Behavior (New York: Holt, Rinehartand Winston, 1965).
10Glenn D. Paige, The Korean Decision (New York: Free Press, 1968), pp. 10-11.
11 Alexander L. George, David K. Hall, and William R. Simons, The Limits of
Coercive Diplomacy - Laos-Cuba-Vietnam (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971).
61/
through typologies of situations that would "account for the policy-relevant
variations among particular cases. ',12 In his "Multiple Advocacy" article
referred to above, George includes mini-cases involving Korea 1950, Dien bien
phu, the Bay of Pigs, the Vietnam Escalation, the MLF, Dominican Republic,
and Cuban Missile Crisis.1 3
Yet another strain of case-study was that developed by Robert North of
Stanford in which he used the 1914 crisis to examine hypotheses concerning
14perceptions in crisis. (A fascinating cognatework, not precisely a case
study, was Robert Jervis' "Hypotheses on Misperception" based on case studies,
and mentioned earlier in this report. 15
An additional example of case study based on such theoretical apparatus
is to be found in a forthcoming book by George and Smoke containing 13 case
studies illustrating aspects of deterrence theory as exemplified in U.S.
foreign policy.1 6
12 Ibid., p. xv.
13 "The Case for Multiple Advocacy," o cit.
14 Robert North, "Perception and Action in the 1914 Crisis," Journal of
International Affairs, 1967(21). See in the same connection Samuel R. Williamson,Jr., "Stumbling Toward War: Organization Structure and the Austro-HungarianExperience," American Political Science Review, September 1971.
15 Robert Jervis, "Hypotheses on Misperception," World Politics 1968 (XX).
16 Alexander L. George and Richard Smcke, Deterrence Theory and Practice
(New York: Columbia University, 1974).
62/
A more recent conceptual framework has been that supplied by the so-called
Bureaucratic Politics Model, and several significant case studies have been
grounded on the propositions embodied in that notion.
Examples of this school are reasonably well-known, notably Graham Allison's
study of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 196217 in which he took "a walk around"
the crisis from the perspective of the three major models of policy behavior;
the similar case study of the HLF by John Steinbruner 8; Richard Neustadt's19
study of the Skybolt controversy; and Morton Halperin's case studies on the
Taiwan Straits crisis and the decision to deploy the ABM.2 0 (The case study
on Peru done for INR by Luigo Einaudi follows the Allison model.)
A final species may be found in the project I recently directed at the
M.I.T. Center for International Studies under the sponsorship of the U.S. Arms
Control and Disarmament Administration. In seeking to discipline available
knowledge concerning the anatomy, so to speak, of local conflicts and small
wars, my associate Amelia C. Leiss and I developed a preliminary dynamic model
17 Graham T. Allison, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile
Crisis (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1971).
18 John D. Steinbruner, The Mind and Milieu of Policy-Makers: A Case
Study of the MLF, unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation (Department of Political Science,M.I.T., Cambridge, Mass., 1968). To be published as Decisions Under Complexity:A Theoretical Analysis of the Politics of Nuclear Sharing (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1974).
19 Richard E. Neustadt, Alliance Politics (New York: Columbia Univ., 1970).
20 Morton H.Halperin, "The Decision to Deploy the ABM: Bureaucratic
Politics in the Pentagon and White House in the Johnson Administration," Paperdelivered to American Political Science Convention, September 1970.
63/
of the stages through which conflicts seem to pass, and the pressures which
events, personalities, and other factors appear to exert either in the direction
of worsening or ameliorating the conflict.21
Having constructed the theoretical framework (christened "Historical-
Analytical"), thirteen contemporary cases of conflict were thoroughly researched22
under Miss Leiss' direction. Subsequent case studies were done according to
the same format and it has continued to serve the somewhat different but
related needs of the CASCON system2 3 subsequently developed under the overall
project ("Computer-Aided System for Handling Information on Local Conflict").
The case study literature reflects some continuing controversies in addition
to the use of theory, and which to use. One question is whether crisis cases
are the best cases to study, inasmuch as whe' the normal day-to-day machinery
of government is suspended (as in the Cuban Missile Crisis) it is not clear
that one learns much that is applicable to the usual policy process. Hans
Heymann warns that to focus on the bureaucratic pulling and hauling process in
crisis "is a treacherous exercise ... No one can really know what is in the
President's mind."'24 What are probably needed are parallel strategies, aimed
21 See Lincoln P. Bloomfield, Amelia C. Leiss et al., The Control of
Local Conflict, ACDA/WEC-98, Vol. II (Washington: G.P.O., 1967);and Bloomfield and Leiss, Controlling Small Wars (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,1969), which contains case studies of the Soviet-Iranian Conflict, Greek CivilWar, Bay of Pigs, Indonesian War of Independence, and Middle East 1956-67.
22 See Amelia C. Leiss and Lincoln P. Bloomfield, The Control of Local
Conflict: Studies of Conflict C.I.S./M.I.T. C/67-19-C, June 30, 1967.23 See Lincoln P. Bloomfield and Robert R. Beattie, "Computers and
Foreign Policy - The CASCON Experiment," Journal of Conflict ResolutionVol. XV, No. 1, Spring 1971.
24 The U.S.-Soviet Civil Air Agreement, op. cit., p. 2.
64/
at studying the process under strain, and under normal conditions. Obviously
the phenomena differ.
A different issue raised by some, for instance Irving Janis and the
Yager team, is whether it is more instructive to study cases of success, or
cases of failure.
Finally, some have recommended case studies where a particular weakness
is manifest; for example, in an interesting addendum to the recent UNA-USA
report on policy process David Bell and Adam Yarmolinsky reported a dearth
of analysis or evidence "of actual recent experience in achieving U.S. objectives
in multilateral situations," and urged remedies "if we are to design more
effective systems for handling U.S. Government business in an increasingly
complex and interrelated world."25
All in all, the virtues of good case studies for the purpose of better
analysis of the policy process seem impressive: data is readily available;
sets of events can be readily distinguished from other sets; some interesting
theoretical constructs are already in hand to make the learning from case
studies of general value; and good people can be found who are both interested
and competent.
Indeed, we face an embarras de richesse in trying to pick and choose among
promising case study methods. As I have shown, various scholars offer competing
arguments for using cases as valuable means of increasing knowledge about the
process, but each has his favorite process in mind (e.g., organizational behavior
model, bureaucratic politics model, "guided retroduction", "cohesive group
phenomena," normative theory, communication theory, etc.).
25 Foreign Policy Decision Making: The New Dimensions, Report of National
Policy Panel of UN Association of the USA, 1973, p. 102.
65/
My provisional conclusion is that no single design is ideal, and the
recommendations made at the end reflect that sense of eclecticism.
66/
IV. CLUES FROM BUSINESS THEORY
A brief survey of the area of business management theory for possible
clues to theoretical work that might be relevant to the Department's policy
process yields findings that can be summed up readily: there is some roughly
comparable theorizing in business management, even drawing on some of the
same source material involving organizational behavior and bureaucratic politics.
There is considerable emphasis on human and group psychology, and also on
organizational reforms to cure observed defects in the decisional process.
My strong impression from selected readings and a few interviews is that
corporate management, and those who theorize about it, share many of the same
frustrations and sense of unknowns as those interested in the governmental policy
process. Indeed, there is amusement in management circles at the persistence
of the belief that the corporate world enjoys greater efficiency, effectiveness,
purposeful behavior, and rational linkage of goals to resources, than does the
policy-maker in foreign affairs. As noted earlier, both worlds are strongly
influenced by the literature of "limited rationality" and "incrementalism"
in decision-making.
But a substantial difference may be the greater willingness of business
to employ psychologists, using techniques such as sensitivity training, to help
get fixes on their policy process. They are likely to look for the source of
organizational failings directly into the areas of ir.terpersonal relationships,
areas that the Department has at least in the past not seriously considered
as a prime unit of policy process analysis.
67/
One of the recent innovative strands of theoretical work in business
management that grew out of the earlier sensitivity literature is known as
Organization Development, an approach that seeks to improve the linkage
between goals, performance, and resources. According to Professor Richard
Beckhard, the dilemma is "how to fully mobilize the energies of the organization's
human resources toward achievement of the organization's performance objectives."
The solution via Organization Development is a "planned, managed change effort."
The means used are "planned interventions," by "change agents", in the organi-
zation's processes, armed with "behavioral science knowledge" bearing on:
individual motivation, power, communication, perception, cultural norms,
problem-solving, goal-setting, interpersonal relations, inter-group relations,
and conflict management."
One of Organization Development's chief tenets is that success requires
a "work climate in which increasingly complex decisions can be made by people
with the information regardless of their location in the organization."2 This
rather heretical departure from the norms of hierarchical bureaucratic structures
is in fact a test of "healthy" decision-making: "Decision-making in a healthy
organization is located where the information sources are, rather than in a
particular role or level of hierarchy."3
In an era of steady centralization of foreign policy decision-making the
implications for the Department of this axiom boggle the mind somewhat. But
at a realistic level a reconendation along these lines is possibly in order.
1 Richard Beckhard, Organization Development: Strategies and Models
(Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1969) pp. v, 1-13. I am indebted to colleagues atthe M.I.T. Sloan School of Management for this and other information.
2 I pIbid., p. 7.
3Ibid., p. 26.
68/
A final possible clue from this selective probe into business management
theory is in the realm of training and education. Task Force X strongly
recommended a rejuvenated and influential Foreign Service Institute as part
of the Department's proposed aggiornamento.
But advanced thinking in this field strongly discourages in-house education,
in the belief that it perpetuates such weaknesses in the decisional process as
are due to lack of creativity or unwillingness to challenge institutional
orthodoxy. In the words of a perceptive observer of both spheres, what the
Task Force saw as part of the solution is, from the standpoint of advanced
business management theory, part of the problem.
69/
V. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
In reading what follows it is important to bear in mind that the
findings of this survey do not focus on the policy process in the Depart-
ment, but rather on what social science research has contributed or might
contribute tr. better understanding of that process -- and thus perhaps to
an improved process.
The reader is asked to recall thebrief analysis of "the problem" at
the beginning of this paper. I suggested three ways of characterizing that
problem.
The first was discontent with policy, for which there were clearly
no organizational, procedural or theoretical panaceas, but which might on
the other hand be positively affected by certain "process solutions" such
as better planning and forecasting.
The second version of the problem is embedded in the chronic criticisms
of Departmental responses as slow, uninspiring, pedestrian, or uncoordinated.
Social science theory seems to have little of value to say here, although
one can think of some relevant solutions.
The third version of the problem resembles criticisms of comparable
institutions whose bigness or hierarchical structure typically produces
shortcomings such as inertia, inefficiency, resistance to change, and failure
to look ahead. The question here is whether the State Department policy process
can benefit from diagnoses of similar instances of bureaucratic weaknesses
common to many institutions.
. --• - 'Z. _- r_ ,e-m m~ mr -I
70/
These three definitions of the Department's "problem" all have in
common the inference of possible remedies from: improved capacity to
analyze and anticipate external events; more imaginative solutions to
policy issues; and better self-understanding and awareness which in any
human situation is believed to generate more rational and purposeful
behavior.
In the Introductory section I further suggested breaking the problem
into its dynamic elements or phases: Input (involving information),
Decision (involving deliberation and selection among choices and options),
and Output (involving implementation). I said that this analysis would
focus on the Input and Decision phases.
These phases integrate with the three types of solutions just
adumbrated to make up the following categories: better-analyzed inputs with
better anticipation; more imaginative solutions; and improved knowledge
and self-understanding. My recommendations for future action or research
will fall under these three headings. Within each I will also try to dis-
tinguish between recommendations to apply relatively well-established research
findings, and recommendations for new research that might lead to findings
of practical interest to the Department.
1. Better-Analyzed Inputs and Anticipation.
The chief criticism here is of the superficiality and lack of analytical
depth of much reporting from the field, a weakness reinforced by congenital
innocence of recently developed social science models of analysis of the
71/
behavior of other countries.
The charge of superficiality raises issues of quality control I cannot
deal with here. However, when it comes to analytical frameworks, a number
of scholars I have discussed point to the relevance of "linkage politics,"1
to the policy process in ways the Department might find suggestive, particu-
larly the insight that the domestic process of both sides may be the single
most important factor in an international transaction. (Two of INR's recent
case studies concluded that undesirable characteristics of bureaucratic
behavior are "aggravated by the community's primitive understanding of the
other side"; they urge that the Department radically improve its capacity
3for interpreting the domestic processes of other countries.3)
One implication for action is that the Department's interpretive
reporting might make more systematic application of some well-researched
models of domestic internal behavior, whether those of bureaucratic behavior
or developmental theories found elsewhere in the social sciences.
One way to do this would be to build into the FSI curriculum more
explicit theoretically-grounded methodologies such as the Bureaucratic Politics
4Model , for reporting officers in training, with simulated reporting exercises
drawing on various analytical frameworks.
1 "Linkage Politics" is increasingly used by social scientists to refer
to the intimate (and under-researched) connectives between domestic politicsand foreign policy. (See the writings of James M. Rosenau, e.g., Linkage Politics:Essays on the Convergence of National and International Systems (New York: FreePress, 1969).)
2 Hans Heymann, Jr., The U.S.-Soviet Civil Air Agreement From Inceptionto Inauguration, A Case Study Prepared for the U.S. Department of State,R-1047-DOS, July 1972.
Luigi Einaudi, Assistance to Peru: A Case Study, 1963-68, p. 58.
Graham T. Allison wrote that "Transfer of these skills from thefingertips of artists to a form that can guide other students of foreignpolicy is this model's most pressing need." Essence of Decision: Explainingthe Cuban Missile Crisis (Boston- Little, Brown, 1972).
72/
Another avenue of action would be to step up training of FSO's in
the use of formal forecasting techniques, such as econometric analysis,
Delphi method, Bayesian techniques, technological assessment, et al.
Along with this, in order to have a better factual basis for instituting
reforms in the capacity to anticipate events, I recommend that a selective
historical analysis be made of past forecasts and predictions from the
5field, measured against actual outcomes. A different approach would be to
make a series of short in-house, classified case studies of key elections, Icoups, conflict outbreaks and the like, tracking the known events back
against the available analysis, reportage and intelligence flow that preceded
6it (and perhaps using something like Roberta Wohlstetter's model6)
A strong case can be made that another major weakness is the imperfect
institutional memory of the Department. Several promising techniques are
under development in the social sciences in the way of computerized foreign
affairs data bases, and even crude policy-analytical programs, that warrant-re
the Department's encouragement in order that they might be brought to a more
directly applicable stage.
As Robert Rothstein pointed out, "We have no studies that havedirectly attempted to analyze the predictive record of political practitioners,"Planning. Prediction and Policy Making in Foreign Affairs: Theory and Practice(Boston: Little, Brown, 1972), p. 166.
6 See Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision (Stanford University, 1962).
73/
Finally, more in the category of "basic research" but nonetheless
of potential value in evaluating critiques of Departmental reportage,
it would be helpful to make a questionnaire survey of the information
foreign affairs professionals depend upon. The hypothesis might be that
officers of the Department depend by an overwhelming margin on classified
cable traffic plus intelligence estimates, while most well-informed outsiders
depend primarily on the NIew York Times and other international journals
and open sources plus travel, interviews, and theory. The results should
throw light on differences in their capacity to forecast, as well as on
the degree of confidence that can be placed in independent estimates
depending on subject matter.
2. More Imaginative Solutions.
My main recommendation is for an up~raded medium and long-range
policy planning capability endowed with a) support and confidence from
above, and b) with the relative independence to challenge first-order
assumptions underlying current policy, as well as c) to apply techniques
such as systematic analysis, forecasting, and simulation as adjuncts to
customary modes of thinking. I am convinced that these three qualities
have been missing far more than they have been present from the inception
of S/P through the present regime of S/PC.
Three particular devices developed by the social sciences are
applicable in upgrading the planning capability.
... ..... ... I
74/
(1) First are techniques for a more institutionalized and accepted
adversary process. Contrary to much of the conventional wisdom about
smooth management of organizations and processes, the aim of the Department
should not be a "frictionless model" of policy-making. On the contrary,
much of the theoretical work done on organizational and institutional
phenomena is convincing in arguing for "creative ambiguity" (as Harlan
Cleveland put it). More open, structured forms of adveraary-type assumption-
challenging ought not to be regarded as threatening, but should rather be
deliberately developed for potential in contributing to a more highly
valued policy product.7
(2) Closely related to this is the eecond device: gaming and simulation.
Irving Janis urged the use of the POLEX as helpfully surfacing symptoms
of "groupthink", as well as for training (the example he gives happens to
be the author's POLEX II produced in 1960). As reported earlier, I (and
doubtless others) believe we have now developed improved techniques for
pre-testing strategies and analyzing competing policy alternatives through
a better-structured political exercise. To the extent this is true, the
Department should either develop an in-house capability for analytical
policy games, or alternatively, should play a far more directing role in
the work of the Political- Military Division of SAGA under the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, which runs a more unstructured variety of political games
"for the community."
In this connection I strongly recommend an in-house review of the
classified file of political-military games put on by JWGA (now SAGA) over
Alexander George, Irving Janis, Herbert Spiro and the present authorall have advanced ideas as to how such a ptocedure might be structured.
75/
a 12 year period, with various hypotheses about policy process and expected
reaction in mind. (The same review could also be made of the comparable
M.I.T. games.)
(3) The third sector under this heading is psychological. In important
ways this may be the most significant problem-area of all, but it is least
clear what applications of theory might be helpful. My primary recommen-
dation thus repeats that of former Under Secretary Crockett (referring to
the Chris Argyris 1966 study) for a "continuing examination. " This is
one sector in which the experience of business is relevant and potentially
helpful.
Clearly needed is a systematic inventory of the possible applications
of the behavioral sciences to the foreign policy process and the conduct
of diplomacy. 9 I would also argue that political or decision games and
other forms of simulation of the policy process can help to uncover not
only the elements in the "black box" discussed above where the "intervening
variables" of policy argument and agreement can be seen, but also the
reactions of individuals to the pressures of action and consensus under
reasonably controlled laboratory conditions.
8 Some Causes of Organizational Ineffectiveness Within the Department
of State. Occasional Paper #2, Center for International Systems Research,Department of State, Publication 8180, January 1967, p. v. Mr. Crockettsaid that "the organization will not be able to integrate (Argyris')recommendations effectively until the interpersonal milieu is altered." p. 2.
9 Victims of Groupthink, op. cit., pp. 209-11.
76/
I cannot refrain, particularly after recently listening to denuncia-
tion during the Watergate hearings of alleged inebriation on the part of
American lawmakers, from passing along Herodotus' reminder (via Irving
Janis) that the ancient Persians, whenever they made a decision following
sober deliberations, would always reconsider the matter under the influence
of wine. lkdest empirical experimentation with this hypothesis persuades
me that, failing all other multiple advocacy or related correctives to
consensus pressures, this ought to be studied further as a way of relaxing
those tensions which may build into the policy process unnecessary rigidity,
diffidence, or misplaced certainty.
3. Improved Knowledge and Self-Understanding.
First under this heading is the acquisition of more systematic
knowledge about past operation of the system with its well-known procedures
and process.
Case studies represent a very promising means, but only if theoretically
sound rtandard frameworks can be developed permitting cases to be compared
ove. time and across regions. Several of the formats discussed earlier
are impressive; but no single one was persuasively definitive or ideal.
It is therefore recommended that a preliminary study be made to seek
an amalgam of approaches, matched with meaningful typologies of cases, aimed
at generating maximum usable knowledge for the Department. Perhaps a team
consisting of one historian, one psychologist, and one experienced FSO could
develop a set of specific recommeddations. Alternatively, an outside social
scientist could work up a typology, and then in consultation with specialists
771
azalyze the various available combinations of theory and method.
Another approach would be to select one from the alternative methods,
and commission several additional cases in order to test the method,
gambling that replication of one or another method will surface potentially
compelling hypothesesor conclusions. (For example, a case study of
Departmental decision-making using by analogy George's Typology of Nine
Malfunctions; or review of a case already studied but using Janis'
hypotheses regarding group behavior; or Allison's Model III).
I (and others) strongly recommend that cases be selected for study
which do not portray the process in crisis. Rather, on the thesis of the
Hound of the Baskervilles, the system while seemingly normal and q'4!.t
could be revealing indeed of the way the process works day in and day out.
In conclusion, two final recommendations are based on the premise
that this enterprise is a two-way street.
First, while outside social science research can furnish possibly
relevant models and constructs, or bring to bear independent judgments
based on certain analytical methods, the Department in both cases should
be viewed as the primary source of data, whether of case studies, attitudes
and beliefs, working habits and style of decision-making, or operational
experience.
' " } 78/ )
Second, since some of the most active critics of the policy process
are younger scholars with minimal first-hand experience, the Department
should facilitate one or two year attractive terminal Departmental assign-
ments for promising younger scholars in the foreign affairs field to
improve their capacity to contribute more effectively to the policy process
in their future research.
!I